The Sound Art of Robert Rauschenberg


Robert Rauschenberg is one of the best-known artists in American history. Known by some as the Father of Pop Art, his experiments in print technology (using silk screening, lithography, solvent transfers, photography, and a huge assortment of other techniques) are well documented in museums around the world. He is legendary for his dense, politically charged sculptural works. One aspect of his creative output that is not as well known is his sound-producing and sound-activated work.

In 1953 Rauschenberg was at a fairly early stage in his career. He had been spending a lot of time with influential artists like John Cage, Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham, each of them developing the ideas that would change their respective mediums forever. In between his experiments with minimalistic painting techniques, Rauschenberg constructed Music Box. This piece was a wooden box that had several antique nails driven into it. Three stones were placed inside. When the box was shaken, the stones would tumble around on the nails, producing a series of sounds. Upon shaking Music Box, artist Marcel Duchamp told Rauschenberg "I think I've heard that song before."

In 1956 Rauschenberg created Broadcast, a painting that included three working radios. He was interested in developing this idea further by making a series of paintings that could produce sounds that viewers could control.

Rauschenberg began collaborating with sound technician, Johan Kluver, in 1962 in order to explore the technical possibilities of interactive art. He asked Kluver to help develop a painting as orchestra in which the viewers would be the conductors of theresulting events. The work of these two men eventually developed into a 1965 sculpturalinstallation entitled Oracle. This piece consisted of a bathtub into which a continuous spray of water streamed, a car door that was attached to a typing stand, a window sash, and a curved air vent. A series of random radios produced a real-world cacophony as motors randomly rotated the tuning dials, effectively creating a random sampling of radio broadcasts. Viewers were able to interact with Oracle by manipulating the volume and rate at which the radios scanned across the dial.

Later that year, wanting to further his collaborative efforts and to expand on the possible benefits of combining technology with art, Rauschenberg created Dynamic Labyrinth. This project was a combination of five sculptures that were constructed out of industrial materials. Five artists, including Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle lent their technological talents to the project. Sound elements included an electric pump that forced air into a tank of water and clocks that ran at different speeds.

In 1966 Rauschenberg composed a multi-media theater piece entitled Open Score with the cooperation of a team of technicians from Bell Labs. The sound-oriented portion of the piece featured a multi-media tennis match. Each time the ball was struck, a loud pong sounded and one overhead light was extinguished. The piece ended when the final light was extinguished and the performance area lapsed into complete darkness. Rauschenberg and his technicians utilized the latest technology in this piece. FM transmitters built into the tennis balls transmitted the sound of the racket/ball contact onto the arena's loudspeakers and activated switches that extinguished the lights. An infrared, closed-circuit television was also used to show projections of onstage activities.

Drive by the desire to create art that would be responsive to the people viewing it and in which no two people would have the same experience, Rauschenberg and a team of technicians from Bell Labs developed Soundings (1968).

Soundings was made up of a series of nine smoked plexi-glass panels. Viewed in silence, the piece appeared to be nothing more than a large, smoked mirror. As the audience moved around the room and made noise, however, various portions of the piece were illuminated, revealing a series of silk screened images or straight-backed chairs. This piece responded differently depending on the timbre and tone of the individual's voice. As a result, Rauschenberg explained, Everybody sees his own art by speaking to it.

In 1971 Rauschenberg worked with the Teledyne Corporation to develop Mud Muse. Taking a break from the flashier works he had been doing, Rauschenberg wanted to engage his audience on a basic, physical level. Mud Muse was a large vat of industrial drilling mud that bubbled and spurted in response to auditory signals. An assortment of pre-recorded sounds (including bird songs, musical notes, and machine noises) as well as sounds made by the audience triggered events in the installation.

Taking the interactive spirit a little farther than intended, the audience at the gallery opening scooped up the mud and smeared it on the gallery walls, causing the curators to shot down the show (much to Rahschenberg's chagrin).

As the above-mentioned projects indicate, Robert Rauschenberg spent his entire career experimenting with a number of approaches to creative expression, often utilizing and developing new technologies in the process. In the course of his work, Rauschenberg encouraged others to explore the possibilities of combining art and technology.


© 2002 - Mike Hovancsek


The 3rd Page Artist Directory
The 3rd Page  ·  Search  ·  EM