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E.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», 1970
Pavilion exterior view (detail) | Photography | Photograph: Fujiko Nakaya | ©
The original four artists wanted to cover the dome, which had been decided on before E.A.T. became involved, with a cloud and asked Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya to create it. We had already rejected chemical means of producing fog: carbon dioxide for environmental reasons and urea for public relations ones. Nakaya found cloud physicist Tom Mee in Pasadena, who designed a nozzle system for her. Water under pressure of 500 psi is pushed through an orifice 10 mil in diameter and hits a small pin which breaks the water into droplets tiny enough to remain suspended in air. The system for the Pavilion consisted of 2520 jet-spray nozzles organized in 10-foot strands of plastic pipe with one nozzle every foot, placed in the ridges and valleys on the top section of the roof. The system could generate a 6-foot thick 150-foot diameter area of low-hanging cloud. This required 41 tons of water per hour, and we had to build a small reservoir to continually feed the system. Nakaya took this photograph the first day she had the cloud system turned on full. The Expo fire brigade showed up, but much to their relief found only what they called "water smoke."


 
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.)