9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering was a legendary series of performances that took place in New York in October 1966, which aimed to bring technology and performance art together through a collaborative effort between engineers of Bell Labs and avant-garde artists of Manhattan. The group who organized this event, led by Billy Klüver, subsequently formed Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), and planned to sort out the documentation of 9 Evenings and publish it as a book from MIT Press. However, for one reason or another, after all the chapters were outlined, all the necessary texts assembled, all the photographs and diagrams chosen and laid out, the publication came to a halt and was never released. The manuscript was stored in a box at Klüver's house, and the documentation project became forgotten over the years.
Working with Julie Martin, the partner of Klüver, and current director of E.A.T., I am going through the rediscovered manuscript of this unreleased book, trying to prepare it for publication. In addition to offering a documentation of performances from more than 50 years ago, this is also an effort to document the original attempt at documentation, while also heeding to the passing of time since and the extra materials that Julie has amassed during those years. Hence, the book aims to be a document of a document, or a document of 9 Evenings twice removed.