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Robert Rauschenberg «Open Score» | Wired Tennis Racket
Robert Rauschenberg, «Open Score», 1966
Wired Tennis Racket | Photography | © ;
Rauschenberg's «Open Score» was performed on the second and ninth of «9 Evenings» in 1966 (October 14 and 23). This racket was made for use in «an authentic tennis game with rackets wired for transmission of sound» during «Open Score.» Rauschenberg writes: «The unlikely use of the game to control the lights and to perform as an orchestra interest me. The conflict of not being able to see an event that is taking place right in front of one except through a reproduction is the sort of double exposure of action. A screen of light and a screen of darkness.»


 
Robert Rauschenberg «Open Score» | Wired Tennis RacketRobert Rauschenberg «Open Score»Robert Rauschenberg «Open Score»Robert Rauschenberg «Open Score»

Categories: Theatre

Keywords: Festival | Interaction | Space

Works by Robert Rauschenberg:

Revolver| Shades| Solstice| Soundings


New York | United States | Tennisschläger mit FM-Übertragungsset und integriertem Mikrophon (67,95 x 22,54 cm x 4,13 cm), Infrarotkameras und -lichter, drei Großraumbildschirme. | Concept: Robert Rauschenberg | Participants: Frank Stella, Mimi Kanarek, Simone Forti, Robert Rauschenberg | Hardware: Bill Kaminski
 

 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.