On June 12, 1971, thirty minutes of live network broadcast air time was granted to writer and artist Douglas Davis by WTOP-TV in Washington DC; Viewers were invited to call in to the station and participate in a live electronic performance.
In this two-page introduction to the publication The New Television: A Public/Private Art, the organizers discuss the Open Circuits conference, which they describe as fulfilling a "need both for an occasion and a catalyst," and which functioned as "a provocation, not a pacifier."