In TV Bra for Living Sculpture, Charlotte Moorman wore two miniature televisions encased in plexiglass boxes attached to a set of vinyl straps, while playing the cello. Moorman debuted the piece on May 17th, 1969, in a five-hour performance at the opening of the exhibition, TV as a Creative Medium, at the Howard Wise Gallery, New York. For the remainder of the exhibition that ran up to June 14th, 1969, Moorman performed for two hours every day. Video played on the screens of TV Bra varied from live broadcasts to live CCTV feeds of the audience to prerecorded video footage. Moorman also distorted the television pictures by taping magnets to her wrists or altered them by capturing the cello sounds with a microphone and transforming them into optical signals. Paik has called this work an example of “humanizing electronics and technology.”
