Centerbeam 1978
Here you see the "Control Shed" with support equipment. "Leopold’s Hand" is drawn by a small neon laser driven by a Polymorphic 8 computer before it is released into the wild via the "Big Green" 3 watt mixed gas laser. Also note the grey box hanging from it’s control cord just above the beer bottle. That is the back of a bank of 10 switches arranged like a keyboard with Plexiglas keys I made so that one could play Joan Brigham’s steam jets, creating clouds of steam at different locations along the sculpture that would then show the images drawn by the laser at varying sizes and locations. I built that box from miscellaneous parts and scraps on site as there was no plan for triggering the solenoids and I had conceptualized "Centerbeam" as a collaborative musical instrument played by a group of artists.
