The Pavilion << Into the 21st Century>>

Pepsi Pavilion

"An unprecedented structure with unprecedented capabilities for visual, aural and theatrical experience, the Pavilion is unlike any other performance arena, in that performers were as entirely absorbed into its shimmering mirrored surface as the audience – their reflections and activities merging with those of the spectators."

– Barbara Rose

The culminating project led by Billy Klüver and E.A.T. during the 1960s was the Pepsi Pavilion, a large scale, collaborative public sculpture, multimedia performance space and responsive environment commissioned by Pepsi-Cola for the Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan. Organized by E.A.T. founders Billy Klüver and Robert Whitman, the project was led by a core design team that also included Robert Breer, Frosty Myers, David Tudor, and a group of over 75 artists and engineers from the US and Japan. Though the Pavilion is often noted in historical accounts of electronic art, only those who visited the Expo were able to experience firsthand what has come to be known as one of the most monumental art and technology projects of the 20th Century.

Pavilion at night	Performance in dome

The Pepsi Pavilion was influenced by the spirit of cooperation and nonhierarchical values that were prevalent during the 1960s. Its embrace of technology and the interaction between the artist and engineer sought to humanize technological systems and free them from the apparatus of the economic structure through aesthetic experience. In particular, Robert Whitman's belief in open, democratic systems of art influenced the creation of a performance environment where the viewer would be responsible for his or her own experience, would compose his own experience.

The project was an intermedia experiment in social interaction, collaboration, and community among a diverse group of visual artists, composers, choreographers, scientists, and engineers. Breaking with the post-renaissance notion of specialization and the artist as "auteur" – single-handedly creating the work – the multidisciplinary nature of the Pepsi Pavilion required the collective effort of a large group of artists and engineers who had the challenging task of integrating and building ideas born from the group process. At the same time, there was considerable space for individual creative thinking, each artist was assigned a component of the overall project. Nevertheless, the sum total of the individual parts had to reach a common goal and coalesce into the whole, striving towards the Gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork.

Fog enshrouds geodesic dome	Kinetic Float sculptures

The Pepsi Pavilion was one of the first immersive artworks and performance spaces to engage the viewer through interaction with electronic media. The cathedral-like work was seminal to recent developments in virtual reality, interactive installations, multimedia theater, and 3D simulations that transport the viewer to electronically-mediated environments. The Pepsi Pavilion also served as a precursor and inspiration for the changing, responsive, participatory nature of interactive media art. The Pepsi Pavilion's open systems, lack of authorial control, and the absorption of the spectator into the work have had considerable impact on the aesthetic and technical use of interactive systems in digital multimedia.

The original structure consisted of a Buckminster Fuller-style geodesic dome covered by a water vapor cloud sculpture, designed by Fujiko Nakaya. When fully operational, the fog system was capable of generating a 6-foot thick 150-foot diameter area of fog that responded to the existing weather conditions. On the terrace surrounding the Pepsi Pavilion were seven of Robert Breer’s Floats, six-foot high kinetic sculptures that moved around at less than 2 feet per minute, while emitting sounds. When a Float hit an obstacle or was pushed it would reverse direction.

The Light Frame sculpture by Frosty Myers consisted of four poles of different heights that were set in a square 130 feet apart at each corner of the Pavilion plaza. At the top of each pole were two 500-watt, high intensity xenon lights. Each light was directed toward the light of the neighboring tower, creating a very narrow pencil beam of light between each tower. This created a well-defined tilted square of white light framing the Pepsi Pavilion and fog condition at night.

Laser deflection system	Mirror reflections

The visitor entered the Pepsi Pavilion through a tunnel and descended into a dark clam-shaped room (Clam Room), lit only by moving patterns of laser light. Lowell Cross designed the laser deflection system, which used four colors from a krypton laser. The highly sensitive mirrors in the system could vibrate up to rates of 500 cycles per second and were activated from the sound system located above.

Upstairs the main space of the Pavilion or Mirror Dome was a 90-foot diameter 210-degree spherical mirror made of aluminized Mylar. The artists conceived of this area as performance space that would be used by visiting artists during Expo '70.

The architect John Pearce devised a way that the Mylar mirror could be fitted inside an airtight cage structure. A slight vacuum of less than 1/1000 of an atmosphere, which could be handled by fans, was sufficient to hold up the mirror. The optical effect in the spherical mirror produced real images resembling that of a hologram. Due to the size of the mirror, a spectator looking at an image could walk around it and see it from all sides.

Programmable sound console	Light and mirror distortions

David Tudor, along with Gordon Mumma and Lowell Cross, designed the sound system as a real-time "electronic music instrument" with 32 inputs, 8 discreet audio 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 linearly across the dome and in circles around the dome. Sound could be shifted abruptly from any one speaker to any other, creating point sources of sound. The lighting, designed by visual artist Tony Martin, could also be preprogrammed or controlled in real-time by the artists.

The floor of the Mirror Dome was divided into ten areas made up of different materials, such as Astroturf, rough wood, slate, tile, asphalt. Through handsets, visitors could hear specific sounds on each different floor material. On the tile floor: horses hooves and shattering glass; on the Astroturf: ducks, frogs, cicadas and lions roaring. These sounds were transmitted from wire loops embedded in the floor, activated as visitors strolled through the space.

The sum total of the Mirror Dome was a fluid experience of light, sound, and movement, constantly changing in response to natural forces and human presence.