It was messy. In the early months of 1970, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. became a sort of high-tech laboratory that smelled like ozone and damp earth. This wasn't just a gallery show; the explorations exhibition 1970 gyorgy kepes organized was a chaotic, beautiful, and deeply flawed attempt to marry the cold logic of MIT computers with the messy soul of human expression.
If you weren't there, it’s hard to describe the vibe. Imagine walking into a room where giant mirrors are vibrating to the sound of your own footsteps or where a "cybernetic" rose reacts to the heat of your hand. Kepes, who founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT, basically wanted to prove that technology didn't have to be a soul-crushing tool of the military-industrial complex.
He failed. Well, he failed and succeeded at the same time.
The Visionary Behind the Chaos
Gyorgy Kepes was a Hungarian-born polymath who escaped the rising tide of fascism in Europe only to find himself in the middle of a different kind of tension in America. He spent his life trying to bridge the gap between "the two cultures"—science and art. By the time the explorations exhibition 1970 rolled around, he was convinced that the world was falling apart because we had lost our sense of ecological balance.
Kepes thought art could be the glue.
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He didn't want people just looking at paintings. He wanted participation. He invited fellows from CAVS, like Wen-Ying Tsai and Otto Piene, to bring their weirdest experiments to the Smithsonian. They brought things that hummed. They brought things that moved. They brought things that used lasers—which, in 1970, felt like actual magic.
What Was Actually Inside the Explorations Exhibition 1970?
People often talk about this show in abstract terms, but the hardware was fascinatingly clunky. Take Wen-Ying Tsai’s "Cybernetic Sculptures." These were stainless steel rods that vibrated at high frequencies under strobe lights. If you clapped your hands or shouted, the vibration frequency changed, making the rods look like they were dancing or shivering. It was responsive. It was interactive before "interactive" was a marketing buzzword.
Then there was the "Pond" project.
This was a collaboration between several artists and engineers that involved a literal pool of water with submerged speakers and sensors. The idea was to create a sensory environment where sound and light were modulated by the physical movements of the visitors. Honestly, it was a maintenance nightmare. Water and electronics in 1970 were not the best of friends.
The exhibition also featured:
- Jan Zach’s flower-like structures that reacted to light.
- Otto Piene’s light ballets that projected shifting patterns across the ceiling, creating an immersive "sky" inside a dark room.
- Stan VanDerBeek’s experiments with multi-projection and early computer animation, which felt like a fever dream of the digital future.
Why Everyone Was Mad at MIT
You have to remember the context. This was 1970. The Vietnam War was raging, and MIT was basically the R&D department for the Department of Defense. Students were protesting on campus, and here was Kepes, trying to use the same technology used for guidance systems to make pretty lights.
It didn't sit well with everyone.
Some critics called it "corporate art." Others felt it was a distraction from the real social issues of the day. There was a genuine fear that by embracing technology, artists were selling their souls to the "system." Kepes argued the opposite: if artists didn't learn to use these tools, the tools would eventually use us. He was kind of a prophet in that way. He saw the digital age coming and wanted to make sure it had a conscience.
The Technical Reality of 1970 Art
Working with technology back then wasn't like opening an app on an iPad today. There were no microcontrollers as we know them. If you wanted something to react to sound, you had to build a custom analog circuit that was prone to overheating.
The explorations exhibition 1970 gyorgy kepes curated was plagued by technical failures. Sculptures broke. Lights burnt out. The sensors were finicky. But that was sort of the point. It was an "exploration." Kepes wasn't presenting a finished product; he was presenting a process. He wanted to show that the "new landscape" of human existence was technological, and we had to find a way to live in it without losing our humanity.
Environmentalism and the "Ecological" Goal
One thing most people miss about this exhibition is how much Kepes cared about the environment. He wasn't just a "tech guy." He was an early advocate for what we now call ecological art.
In the catalog for the show, he wrote about the "pollution of the senses." He felt that modern life was so loud, so bright, and so cluttered that we couldn't think or feel anymore. The installations in Explorations were designed to be "calibrators." They were supposed to help people reconnect with their senses through the very technology that was supposedly numbing them.
It was a paradox. A weird, glowing, humming paradox.
Why This Matters Today (The Legacy)
Look around. We live in the world Kepes predicted. Our art is digital, our interactions are mediated by screens, and we are constantly trying to find a balance between our devices and our "real" lives.
The explorations exhibition 1970 was the prototype for everything from Burning Man installations to the immersive "Van Gogh" experiences that tour the world today. It paved the way for the media labs and art-tech programs that now exist in almost every major university. Kepes was the one who pushed the door open, even if he got hit by the door a few times on his way through.
The show eventually traveled to other locations, but that first run at the Smithsonian remains the most significant. It was the moment the art world and the tech world had their first real, awkward, public date. It wasn't perfect, but it changed everything.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Creative
If you’re an artist, designer, or just someone interested in how we use tech today, there are some real lessons to take away from what Kepes was doing in 1970.
- Don't wait for the technology to be "ready." If Kepes had waited for stable computers, he never would have started. Use what you have, even if it’s clunky. The friction between the creator and the tool is often where the best ideas come from.
- Think about the "system," not just the object. Kepes wasn't interested in making a statue. He wanted to make an environment. In your own work, ask how the viewer participates. How does the space change when a human enters it?
- Acknowledge the ethics of your tools. Kepes was criticized for his ties to MIT, and he took that criticism seriously. Be aware of where your technology comes from and what it was originally designed for. Use it to subvert or humanize those origins.
- Focus on the "Ecological" Impact. Even if you're working with high-tech software, ask if you're contributing to "sensory pollution" or if you're helping people find a moment of clarity.
- Read the original texts. If you can find a copy of the exhibition catalog or Kepes's book The New Landscape in Art and Science, buy it. His prose is dense but his insights into how we perceive the world are still ahead of our time.
The 1970 exhibition wasn't just a moment in art history; it was a warning and a roadmap. We’re still exploring the same territory he mapped out fifty years ago.