In February 1982, The National Endowment for the Arts gave a $7,000 grant — almost $23,000 in 2023 dollars — for a sound and light show at the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin — that drew a small crowd, malfunctioned and confused visitors.
For this wasteful spending, Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, gave the endowment a Golden Fleece Award. He gave awards to wasteful and nonsensical spending, eventually handing out 168 Golden Fleece Awards between 1975 and 1988.
The event sponsors used 16 loud speakers and a complex lighting system on the evening of Dec. 21, 1981 to turn the state capitol into a “geometrically-tuned instrument which will bring together and send forth humans and planetary energies in a message of world peace.”
According to the description offered to the participating artists, for 9 hours, time-delayed voices saying “ocean” will be sent through the speakers outside of the capitol dome, and at each hour, there will be a 12-minute live performances of spoken and sung languages, coinciding with “heightened energies resulting from the rotating planetary influences of the Winter Solstice.”
“The capitol building is located on the site of an ancient mound which once was part of a giant zodiacal wheel used by ancient tribes in rites combining the energies of earth and space,” the description says.
“It is hoped that the new combination of sound frequencies and colors will vibrantly interact with the magnetic energies intersecting at the capitol mound. The building will become a giant energy pyramid, spiraling “The Tongues of Light” put into the universe to join with other voices — past, present and future — as a message of peace and hope.”
Because the capitol is a “geometrically-tuned instrument, with a capacity to send or receive space/time communications,” it’s a “passageway to other worlds.”
It would’ve been waste enough had this worked, but the operation malfunctioned.
The newspaper The Wisconsin State Journal reported that a sparse crowd showed up for the Winter Solstice event and were intrigued by the “seal-like undistinguishable sounds humming from the dome.”
The show “provoked a sigh of disappointment rather than a gasp of awe,” and two of the four lights didn’t function, and the two remaining lights were white, rather than colored.
“Most participants undoubtedly left more confused than inspired,” the review stated.
Proxmire scoffed at this funds being spent on such a silly event. “After funding this event in Madison, will the National Endowment for the Arts go on to fund cult rituals, hippie-happenings and exorcism events?”
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