Robert Rauschenberg: It couldn’t be done today. It was done before its time, and it’s too late now. That’s a rare moment.

Ahmed Best: The 1960s—science and engineering are advancing faster than people can figure out how to use them. Lasers, L.E.D.s, even the ATM are being developed. Things are changing so fast, it's scary.

In season three of Recording Artists, we look at how a group of artists and engineers responded to this moment by forming the art/science organization Experiments in Art and Technology, or E.A.T. I’m your host, artist and futurist Ahmed Best.

Rauschenberg:  I think the engineers like the spirit and I think the artists like the mind.

Best: Using Getty’s archival recordings alongside new interviews with artists, scientists, and historians, we’ll dive deep into the creation and legacy of this group dedicated to exploring the creative potential of new technologies

Billy Kluver: It was as chaotic as must have been the first makings of cinema in 1905 or something like that. It probably had much the same spirit to it. 

Best: Over three episodes, we’ll meet some of E.A.T.’s key players—two of the group’s co-founders, artist Robert Rauschenberg and Bell Labs engineer Billy Kluver, as well as artist Fujiko Nakaya, an early E.A.T. member who continues to make art today.

Fujiko Nakaya:  It's very limited what you can do yourself. [Harriet de Long: Yes.] Well, maybe for talented people it's different.  

Best: We dive into big questions like, how do artists and scientists think about failure? Why would scientists want to work with artists anyway? And where do echoes of E.A.T. appear in our world today?

Fred Turner: E. A. T. really prototyped a way of doing art and technology and sharing the legitimacy of those worlds that has come down to us from that time and, and, and that is re-invoked regularly.

Best: From Bell Labs to Silicon Valley, from the creation of the EPA to calls for climate justice today, get inspired to push the bounds of what you think you can create.  

Kluver: We really don't know what's going to come out of this. But that's what's exciting about it. That's what makes you want to do it, because you don't know what's going to come out of it.

Best: Join me for season three of Recording Artists. Out October 8th, wherever you get your podcasts.

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