Open Score by Robert Rauschenberg

Open Score is the first in a series of performance art pieces presented in New York in 1966 under the auspices of E.A.T. (Experiments in Arts and Technology), established by noted artist Robert Rauschenberg and research scientist Billy Klüver to promote collaboration between artists and engineers. The innovative programs—joint efforts by 10 artists and 30 engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories—bowed under the omnibus title of 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, and included pieces conceived by choreographers, composers, and theatre artists, backed by Bell personnel using technologies such as video, television projection, wireless sound, sonar, etc. This program preserves Rauschenberg's contribution, which begins with a tennis match in which the rackets have been fitted with microphones that amplify the sound of the ball being struck. With each stroke, the lights illuminating the match go off one by one, and a crowd enters in the darkness, projected onto large screens by infrared cameras, after which the lights are restored. In a coda, a woman singing a folk song while concealed in a woolen sack is carried around the auditorium by Rauschenberg. Technically limited by the four-decades old murky footage and sound, this piece is more curiosity than masterpiece, but it represents a significant moment in the marriage of art and technology, and new footage here features participants, including Rauschenberg and Klüver, reflecting on the creative process. Recommended, especially for art history collections. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)