E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology, «Experiments in Art and Technology - Documents», 1967
Booth at the annual meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 1967 | Courtesy: ZKM Mediathek, Karlsruhe | Photography | Photograph: Frank Grant | ©

The initial effort of E.A.T. in 1967 and 1968 was to generate publicity and contacts in order to recruit engineers to work with artists and to raise money for the operation of E.A.T. We arranged for artists to visit technical laboratories like Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., IBM Laboratories in Armonk, N.Y., and RCA Sarnoff Laboratories in Princeton, N.J. We held a weekly open house at the E.A.T. loft, where artists and engineers could meet and talk informally. In March 1967 we took a booth at the annual meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) where artists made the case for engineers getting involved. In this photograph artists Tom Gormley and Hans Haacke, far right, are talking to an engineer. Our recruiting efforts were successful. Within three years, in addition to 2000 artist members, we had more than 2000 engineer members all over the country. This made it possible to carry out our goal of responding to every artist who required technical help and matching the artists with engineers who could collaborate with them on ideas the artists couldn't execute by themselves.