Robert Rauschenberg
«Open Score»

Open Score, Robert Rauschenberg's piece for 9 Evenings, began with a tennis game on the floor of the Armory. Bill Kaminski designed a miniature FM transmitter that fit in the handle of the tennis racquet, and a contact microphone was attached to the handle of the racquet with the antenna wound around the frame of the head. Each time Frank Stella and Mimi Kanarek hit the ball the vibrations of the racquet strings were transmitted to the speakers around the armory, and a loud BONG was heard. At each BONG, one of the 48 lights went out, and the game ended when the Armory was in complete darkness. Five hundred people came on stage in the dark. Using infrared light and infrared television cameras, their images were picked up and projected on three large screens suspended in front of the audience. In a third section, Simone Forti, in a cloth sack, sang an ltalian love song as Rauschenberg picked her up and put her down at several places on the Armory floor.