Educational Media Reviews Online

Open Score by Robert Rauschenberg is the first of 10 DVD’s to be released in a series titled 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering. They are filmed recordings of the artistic events/experiments/happenings rather than artistic products, themselves. The purpose was to merge everyday events with modern technology to create a new artistic result. Veterans of this era of experimental art, now more commonly referred to as performance art, will remember the reverent and patient observations, waiting on hard bleachers in some long emptied factory or warehouse for something significant to occur. Sometimes it was a car honk or scream from someone who had just stared at their watch for ten minutes. It was the birth of minimalism, unwitting audiences waiting for the extraordinary to spring forth from the ordinary. Here, October 1966, it is a tennis match with transmitters inside tennis rackets. Engineers from Bell Telephone Technologies collaborated by pop artist Robert Rauschenberg. Emerging technologies meet emerging art. The film’s producer Billy Kluver meticulously describes the preparations and process along with Rauschenberg and other participating engineers and performers. The film is so far removed from the performance itself that it comes off as artifact rather than art. Open Score by Robert Rauschenberg is essential for any art collection, but not for general collections.