Overview

In the context of the Cold War, use of the word “shelter” was common. However, it surprised Iimura when he started to live in New York in the 1960s. His work Shelter 9999 embodied the idea of a shelter of the future. Iimura captured scratched letters and abstract lines on black film. Letters were not legible at the speed 24 letters per second that corresponded to the sequence of 24 frames per second. Experimental musician and music professor Alvin Lucier was in charge of sound. Together they performed the collaborative work at a disco club in East Village.