Former Bell Labs engineer Billy Kluver, the co-founder with Robert Raushchenberg of Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) in 1966, died on Sunday of cancer. E.A.T facillitated collaborations between avant-garde artists and creative scientists, leading to a groundbreaking performance series called Nine Evenings: Theater and Engineering. The patron saint of tech-art, Kluver worked with the likes of John Cage, Andy Warhol, and Jean Tinguely (whose self-destroying machines later inspired Survival Research Laboratories).
"In the twentieth century efficient means of spreading technical information have developed and now the emphasis is on the individual's relationship to the environment. This is a change in attitude away from concern for the object–its engineering, operation, and function, and toward aesthetics–human motivation and involvement, pleasure, interest, excitement." –Billy Kluver, 1971
Link to an article about Kluver
Link to NY Times obituary (free reg. required)
