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E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70» | Clam Room
E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology, «Pepsi Pavilion for the Expo '70», 1970
Clam Room | Photography | Photograph: Harry Shunk | ©
The sloping floor and ceiling of the Clam Room was designed by Robert Whitman to provide a transition between the outside of the Pavilion and the Mirror Dome upstairs. It was dark, with some light coming from the glass ceiling which was the center part of the floor of the Mirror Dome. A sound-activated laser deflection system showered the floor and visitors with moving patterns of laser light 10 feet across. Lowell Cross designed the system which split the beam from a krypton laser into four colors, and sent each color beam to sets of mirrors mounted at right angles and vibrating up to 500 cycles per second to create the patterns. This is a view of the Clam Room looking toward the entrance tunnel.


 
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.)