Presented in conjunction with 2nd Story’s exhibition Camila Galaz: Diskette // Rosette, this special program is a collaboration between 2nd Story, the University of Kentucky College of Design, and The Kentucky Theater.

Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was founded in 1966 to foster collaborations between artists, engineers, and scientists, and to explore how emerging technologies could open new possibilities for creative practice. Its landmark project, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, brought ten artists—including John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Öyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor, and Robert Whitman—together with more than thirty engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories for a series of experimental performances at the Armory in New York.

The program will feature a 30-minute documentary about 9 Evenings, with a focus on John Cage’s performance Variations VII, during which he drew sounds from telephone lines, radio signals, household appliances, generators, brainwaves, and other sources to create a constantly changing composition.

 The screening will be followed by a conversation with Michael Solway of Cincinnati’s Solway Gallery, whose family had deep relationships with pioneering artists such as John Cage, Nam June Paik, Buckminster Fuller, and others working at the intersection of art and technology. Together, the film and conversation offer a glimpse into a pivotal moment of collaboration when artists, engineers, and scientists began imagining new ways of using technology to challenge expectations for what art could be.

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Michael Solway, born in Cincinnati in 1960, has worked as a curator and gallery director since the mid-1980s. From 2001 to 2010, he operated Solway Jones in Los Angeles with his partner, Angela Jones. He returned to Ohio in 2011 as director and curator of Carl Solway Gallery. Following his father’s death in 2023, the gallery transitioned to Solway Gallery, with Michael as owner and director.

Over the course of his career, Michael has worked with artists’ collectives including TODT and USCO, represented the estate of Hannah Wilke, and published exhibition catalogues including Hannah Wilke: Selected Works 1960–1992 (2004), produced in cooperation with the Hannah Wilke Collection & Archives, Los Angeles, and Channa Horwitz: Full Circle 1964–2005 (2005). His program also featured conceptual artists William Anastasi and Tom Marioni, Los Angeles photographers Elizabeth Bryant and Stephen Berens, and exhibitions exploring the intersections of art and music. In 2012, he curated John Cage and Friends, a centennial exhibition celebrating Cage. More recent exhibitions include Yoko Ono: Colours of the Globe, and two presentations of works by Philadelphia-based artist and musician John Dowell.

Michael lives in Cincinnati with his two cats, Rolo and Stella Blue, and attempts to make a daily painting while listening to WPBR, Princeton Radio.

Major support for Diskette//Rosette and all accompanying programming is generously provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.