"The initial concern of the artists
who designed the Pavilion was that the quality of the experience of
the visitor should involve choice, responsibility, freedom, and participation.
The Pavilion would not tell a story or guide the visitor through a
didactic, authoritarian experience. The visitor would be encouraged
as an individual to explore the environment and compose his own experience."
– Billy Klüver
The Pavilion << Into the 21st Century >> pays homage
to the Pepsi Pavilion created by E.A.T. (Experiments in Art &
Technology) for the Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan. This visionary work
of art and architecture is being returned to contemporary audiences
as a "theater of the future," an installation that extends
the experience of the original to the Internet. A new generation of
artists, composers, and engineers are working to challenge the potential
of the Pepsi Pavilion with 21st century paradigms of interactive multimedia.
However, the project draws from the fundamental notion of interdisciplinary
collaboration, the synthesis of art and technology, audience participation,
and social interaction that was integral to the original concept –
encouraging a freer, more participatory experience that breaks down
the traditional distinction between artist, audience and artwork.
–– Randall Packer, Project
Director
contact: rpacker@zakros.com
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| Pepsi Pavilion mirror
images |
Prototype mirror images
|
The artists and engineers who created the Pepsi Pavilion
synthesized the tendencies of the 1960s, bringing together the currents
of social interaction, collaboration, electronic media, Happenings and
performance art, immersive environments, and mind-altering ”realities”
in this transformative, “magic theater.”
The Pavilion << Into the 21st Century >>
is conceived as a project that links these seminal explorations with
contemporary concerns. The Pepsi Pavilion was concerned with audience
involvement – the individual and collective participation in the
composition of the visual and aural experience. With the emergence of
the Internet and the World Wide Web, how can the experience of art in
the context of social interaction blur the boundaries of physical and
virtual space? How can the experience of art meaningfully engage an
audience when distributed through the Network dissolving time and space?
These are questions the Pavilion << Into the 21st Century >>
invites us to consider.
The project consists of two parts: (1) an immersive,
didactic presentation of the original Pepsi Pavilion that includes a
scale model of the exterior, large scale photographs, surrround-sound
recordings, technical sketches, and archival photographic and film documentation;
(2) an installation, Pavilion 21, that extends the experience of the
original into virtual, networked space.
Project
video documentation
Includes: archival film from the Pepsi
Pavilion, Expo '70, Osaka, Japan; work-in-progress at the NASA-Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland (requires broadband connection
/ Quicktime) |
