The Brooklyn Rail

Jim Harithas was one of the few museum directors who would take chances on young unknown artists, and was willing to support experimental use of new technologies. I was fortunate enough to have been one of them. It was always exciting to be around Jim’s creative energy, his urgency about life and his willingness to roll up his sleeves and get into what I was doing and see where it was going with needed confidence.

In 1973, I began doing something no one had attempted before, let alone been part of a museum show. I was visualizing the live brain wave communication between two people and superimposing it on their faces simultaneously, creating a physical and mental portrait in real time. This was evidenced by the creation of a circle, when both participants emitted the same brain wave, in amplitude and frequency, at exactly the same time, proving the existence of non-verbal communication. There was a primacy we both felt together in revealing this work to the public then, and I can still feel that energy as I continue this work now, some forty plus years later.

I called them Interactive video drawings at the time, and Jim was fascinated throughout my EEG: Video Telemetry Environment show at the CAM in 1975, and often participated as he is seen doing in the illustrations below. There were ready and waiting participants around the block and I was there everyday for four months. So, we got to know each other well and I knew I could always count on him to come through.