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| Keith Sonnier (left), New York Earth Station, Battery Park City Landfill, September 11 1977. |
By Liza Béar
Long before the widespread use of the internet, the mid to late seventies
saw a burgeoning telecommunications revolution, which excited some of
us more than the counter-cultural thrust of, say, Punk and the
Sex Pistols. As independent artists/filmmakers, we wanted to be active
participants in it, not just passive recipients of broadcast information produced by others.
In the present era of unavoidable, ubiquitous Zoom teleconferencing, it may be hard to imagine the frisson evoked by the satellite itself and the prospect of instant two-way communication across 3000 miles--or the sheer bureaucratic offensive needed to get access to it.
Always well-informed and eager to explore the cutting-edge, in
1975--well before the launch of CTS, NASA's next satellite--Keith Sonnier
had already submitted a preliminary request to NASA
to do an interactive transmission between East and West Coast
artists. In NASA terms, this would be a "demonstration" of a few days' duration.
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| CTS Communications Technology Satellite used in Send/Receive |
Jointly owned with
the government of Canada, which had it designed and built, the CTS, a
high-powered experimental communications satellite, was intended
for the public and paid for by taxpayer dollars. CTS (code name Hermes)
operated at frequencies of 12-14 GhZ, higher than previous satellites.
With its amazing 200-watt transmitter, the most powerful of its time, it
could be accessed by low-powered and
relatively inexpensive satellite dishes within its footprint. That
characteristic made it ideally suited for use by non-profits and community organizations. But perhaps NASA didn't expect individual applicants.
Launched
from Cape Canaveral in January 1976 at a fixed orbit 22,300 miles from
earth, CTS, nicknamed "the bird" for its unusually large winglike solar
panels, had a life expectancy of a
few years.
Initially
Keith had conceived of this project as "a work", in the style of his previous New
York-LA Hook-Up, which linked an audience at 112 Greene Street, New
York, with guests at the Grinstein residence in Brentwood, LA, by amplified
telephone. (Keith discussed his concerns in New York-LA Hook-Up, as well as earlier work linking two separate locations via Citizens Band and automobile radios, in Avalanche, May-June 1974.)
Still not having received a NASA response to his proposal, in the summer of 1976
Keith asked me to co-produce this project with him. (Avalanche
13 had just gone to press; I'd been doing radio programs and early
videos since '75.) Dialogue was the essence of our long-standing
friendship and working relationship. Also,
Center for New Art Activities (CNAA), the 501(c)3 that published Avalanche,
could be used to file a new proposal. A not-for-profit was an essential step in the acronym
supply chain.
Some months later, we traveled to Washington DC to attend satellite workshops
and learn the NASA lingo. I'm glad
to say we treated this serious matter with a sense of humor--lots of
laughter at the stacks of paperwork--and the linguistic demands placed on us. A learning curve indeed. Instrumental in these
efforts to woo NASA was Andy Horowitz of the Public Interest Satellite
Association (PISA), a major source of information and support. Horowitz
actively participated in both Phase 1: Send/Receive and Phase 11:
Send/Receive.
In the course of our collaboration, Keith's initial concept changed. NASA asks you to state a need for the demonstration. What would be
our objectives? We came to see it as a telecommunications experiment, a prelude to setting up a satellite/cable network, coordinated by and for artists who weren't under an institutional umbrella. The evolution of the
project took on a political, or at least an activist dimension.
As
part of the preparations, and to introduce potential participants to the
subject, in the Spring of 1977 on our return from DC, we made Phase I:
Send/Receive , a 23 minute 3/4 inch color videotape. For the
record, the Sony 3/4 inch color portapak--which we needed to shoot in
Keith's studio-- was brand new then. We had to borrow one from WXXI-TV
in Rochester.
The
format of Phase 1 relates more to Keith's earlier videos than to
documentary. No live action or talking heads; the sound and image are
treated separately. A continuously panning camera reveals printed
satellite iconography at close range. In a live edit situation, the
initial
taping was overlaid (by me) with character-generated text--a very
basic kind in the 70s--which comments on the imagery presented to the
camera (I'd started using live texts in my own tapes in 1975).
While the first of three visual sets compares the satellite industry to television in the mid-thirties, the
second focuses on the shifting balance of power between government and
industry and the limits of citizen access, and the third points to
implications of satellite technology for human communication.
The
sound mix of Phase 1 includes readings and dialogues about technical,
economic and political issues in satellite use as well as meditative
background music by Brian Eno. Yes, the dialogues overlap or are cut
off, to the chagrin of some, but that was a deliberate part of the
editing, intending to evoke the effect of information overload created by parallel channels. You catch what you can.
What
are the implications of simultaneity? Of instant exposure and instant
response? We couldn't imagine, in 1977, how satellite technology would develop over the next four decades--or who would benefit.
As well as persuading NASA
to schedule CTS time for our demo, and to provide
a portable earth station (a sort of bread truck with a dish), we had
to persuade AT&T to install a special phone line on the Battery Park
City
landfill, the New York site, then still an ideal open space bordering
the Hudson with
no buildings but within sight of the World Trade Center. A phone line
would be necessary for engineers to communicate during set-up while
tweaking antenna placement and noise-to-signal ratio. A seemingly
unending stream of clearances had to be obtained from other local
authorities.
We
also traveled to San Francisco to enlist Brad Gibbs, the head of Ames
Research Center, a permanent earth station, in the project, before meeting
artists who would participate from there. These were dancer Margaret
Fisher, artists Terry Fox, Richard Lowenberg and Alan Scarritt, as
well as Carl Loeffler of La Mamelle and video artist Sharon Grace, who
became the West Coast coordinator.
Getting Brad on board was the clincher. NASA eventually scheduled satellite time for Send/Receive during three days in September.
Here's
what happened: on September 8th, test day, the transmitter in the Class
1 truck broke down. New parts had to be shipped in from Chicago.
On September 10th, which would have been the first transmission day, one satellite channel overheated.
Finally, on September 11, everything worked. The transmission was relayed to public access cable channels at both ends, ours via infrared link to Manhattan Cable.
In
contrast to the arduous pre-production run-up and technical hassles,
the demo itself was remarkably laid back despite an awareness of the
scale of the endeavor. This was a first for the art community. The
participants, friends or co-workers*, had been recruited informally. In
New York, the bright, late afternoon sunshine reflecting off the water
no doubt helped the atmosphere, though it made it a bit harder to
decipher the screen image.
From the three and half hours of
footage recorded on the Battery Park City landfill, we edited Phase 11: Send/Receive, a 3/4 inch half-hour tape.
http://vimeo.com/180954747
Two minute clip from demo.
Looking
at the tape, you feel the suspense of waiting for a connection--for the
first live feed from San Francisco and, a bit later, anticipating the
split screen that would show dancers Margaret Fisher and Nancy Lewis,
echoing each other's moves side by side on the screen, a highlight of
the afternoon.
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| Left: Nancy Lewis, New York; right: Margaret Fisher, San Francisco. | Photo: Gwenn Thomas |
Before and after the performances, which included a sound loop by Alan Scarritt, everyone got a chance to interact on camera, discuss aspects of the demo and quiz
Brad Gibbs, the NASA rep., about future prospects for public satellite
access (not encouraging financially). We grew accustomed to the
half-second delay, the time it takes for the signal to bounce off the
satellite.
Improvising
a welcome ethereal soundtrack to the surreal ambiance on set were
Richard (Dickie) Landry and Richard Peck on saxophone in New York, and
Terry Fox on a "box with two strings" in San Francisco.
*New
York participants in the Sept 11 demo: Andy Horowitz, Nancy Lewis,
Richard Landry, Richard Peck, Betsy Sussler, Willoughby Sharp, Duff
Schweninger, Paul Shavelson, Keith Sonnier, Liza Béar. Set
photographers: Richard Landry and Jackie Winsor. Video stills: Gwenn Thomas
(c) Copyright Liza Béar 2020
