Abstract- Experiments in Art and Technology: a Gap to Fill in Art History's Recent Chronicles.

When engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer as well as artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman, founded Experiments in Art and Technology – a month after 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering was held before 10 000 spectators, they shared a vision of a fruitful collaboration between art, technology, science and industry. The 9 Evenings held in October 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armoury in New York City, was an event that would shape a collaborative and interdisciplinary mode of creation for years to come. Nonetheless, a great number of art history's chronicles on the art of the 60's and 70's spend little time and space on the EAT phenomenon. Sometimes these accounts even overlook EAT's impact on the art of that period or simply do not acknowledge its existence. So, why this gap in our recent art history's analyses? Along with a chronological overview of EAT's origins and activities, in the powerful context of the 60's and the 70's in the US, I will attempt, with a few hypotheses, if not to give answers, at least to clarify some of the motivations that might have led to this art historical hiatus.