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E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Cross Section of the Pavilion
E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology, «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70», 1970
Cross Section of the Pavilion | ©
This cross section of the Pavilion shows that visitors entered through a tunnel on the right, and descended into a dark clam-shaped room lit by moving patterns of laser light. Climbing the stairs, they came into the Mirror Dome, which was Bob Whitman's idea. It was a 90-foot diameter 210-degree spherical mirror made of aluminized mylar in which the real image of the floor and the visitors on it hung upside down in space over the their heads. David Tudor designed the sound system as an "instrument" with 32 input channels and 37 speakers arranged in a rhombic grid on the surface of the dome behind the mirror. Sound could be moved at varying speeds around or across the dome, or it could be shifted abruptly from any one speaker to another, creating point sources of sound. Both the lighting system, designed by artist Tony Martin, and the sound system could be pre-programmed or controlled in real time from a console at one side of the Dome. The artists wanted to create a Pavilion where the visitors could explore the environment and create their own experience. The artists also conceived of the Pavilion as a performance space, continuously programmed by visiting American and Japanese artists throughout the six months of Expo ‘70.


 
E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Cross Section of the PavilionE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Pavilion exterior viewE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Clam RoomE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Pavilion exterior view (detail)E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Pavilon (view from the back)E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Spherical MirrorE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | group photoE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | pavilion by nightE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Performance with a flagE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | spherical mirror upside downE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | exterior view 2 (detail)E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | exterior view (detail)E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Laser PerformanceE.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Spherical Mirror (model)E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Pepsi Pavillon für die Expo ’70
Osaka | Japan | spherical, 90-foot diameter, 210-degree mirrored dome, geodesic shell, surround-sound system, handsets, 800-pound kinetic sculptures, 4 towers with powerful xenon lights | Participants: John Pearce (Architektur), Bob Whitman (mirror dome), David Tudor (sound systems), Tony Martin (lighting system), Robert Whitman (design), Lowell Cross (laser light system), Fujiko Nakaya (water vapor cloud sculpture), Frosty Myers (Light Frame sculpture)
 

 E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology
«Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70»

«The ‹Pepsi Pavilion› was first an experiment in collaboration and interaction between the artists and the engineers, exploring systems of feedback between aesthetic and technical choices, and the humanization of technological systems. Klüver‘s ambition was to create a laboratory environment, encouraging ‹live programming› that offered opportunity for experimentation, rather than resort to fixed or ‹dead programming› as he called it, typical of most exposition pavilions. [...] The Pavilion‘s interior dome–immersing viewers in three-dimensional real images generated by mirror reflections, as well as spatialized electronic music–invited the spectator to individually and collectively participate in the experience rather than view the work as a fixed narrative of pre-programmed events. The Pavilion gave visitors the liberty of shaping their own reality from the materials, processes, and structures set in motion by its creators.»

(Randall Packer, «The Pepsi Pavilion: Laboratory for Social Experimentation», in: Jeffrey Shaw/Peter Weibel (eds), Future Cinema. The cinematic Imaginary after Film, exhib. cat., The MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London, 2003, p. 145.)