frontier of new technologies.  In particular, he regarded Siegel as the "whiz kid" of the small, energetic video community.  After his participation in "TV as a Creative Medium," Siegel traveled to Sweden and began designing a video synthesizer.  Upon his return to the U.S., he approached Wise with the idea and Wise "was skeptical but agreed to fund it," according to Siegel, who then went to San Francisco to build a prototype.  He recalls, "I was one of the strongest instigators Of the video movement, and I saw that as my role.  Both Nam June Paik and I did a lot of promoting to Howard Wise of the idea that video was the next thing.... Later when I came back to New York a (after completing the synthesizer) and there was no more Howard Wise Gallery, I was surprised and a bit guilty."

Upon Siegel's completion of the synthesizer In 1970, Wise and he differed on the question of how the device should be marketed.  Wise wanted to license a manufacturer to build R. Siegel did not agree:

In retrospect, it was an unfortunate misunderstanding.  I was a purist and didn't want television commercials to be made with the synthesizer.  Howard thought commercial work would be okay.  Looking back now, it would have been better, because at least the synthesizer would have been produced.

Siegel describes his relationship with Wise as symbiotic, and it was similar to the kind of partnership that Wise has established with many artists:

The attitude In those days was "We're all In this together doing our own thing," and when that overlapped we worked together.  Howard could make use of the things I knew how to do, and in exchange he could exposure and funds, which I did not know how to get on my own.

In December 1970, Wise exhibited "Three Sounds," by Howard Jones, and decided it would be the final show in his gallery.  In fact, it was the only show he ever sold out.  As Wise remembers,

it was one piece, and one person bought It-Malcom Forbes.  It consisted of aluminum cases which were activated by various things-if you walked between the light source and the sensor of the piece, it would create a sound. -There were different sensors all around the room, so you could play different tunes.  It was quite a sight in the gallery to see people, in effect, dancing.

On December 15 Wise wrote a letter explaining his decision to close the gallery:

The most Important considerations which have Impelled me to make this decision are that many artists, among them some of the most adventuresome,

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