104
RICHARD KOSTELANETZ
Martin's part in a musical or used the Cincinnati Philhannonic rather
than the New York Philharmonic.
INTERVIEWER:
You write for these performers, and they have learned to
respond to the particular language of your instructions.
RAUSCHENBERG:
It goes beyond interpretation of following directions.
From the outset, their responsibility, in a sense of collaboration, is part
of the actual form and content and appearance of the piece.
It
makes
them stockholders in the event itself, rather than simply performers.
In
Map Room Two,
a couple of the people involved said
that they had now gotten some kind of feeling about what I was
after. Because this is my fourth or fifth piece and these people, if
they weren't in them, had seen them all, then I think there is a body
of work.
If
someone is working with an unfamiliar kind of image and
if you see only one, it looks like a lot of things that it isn't and a lot
of things that it is; but you don't really understand the direction. In
five of those new things you're more apt to see what they are doing.
It's like signposts; you need a few to know that you are really on the
right road.
INTERVIEWER:
Do you feel stronger and more confident now in approach–
ing a theater piece?
RAUSCHENBERG:
Confidence is something that I don' t feel very often,
because I tend to eliminate the things I was sure about. I cannot help
but wonder what would happen
if
you didn't do that and if you did
this. You recognize the weaknesses in
Map Room Two,
for instance,
that weakness of the neon thing coming last.
Linoleum
is probably
one of the most tedious works I've ever done, the most unclimactic.
If
you're in the audience, you simply move into it with your attention
and live through this thing. At a certain point it's over.
INTERVIEWER:
How did you conceive
Oracle
[1965], your environmental
sculpture?
RAUSCHENBERG:
I finished it after I got back from Europe, after touring
with Merce Cunningham. Technically, it had to be completely rebuilt,
because ideas which had been impossible when I started in 1962, later
became possible.
INTERVIEWER:
In the technological sense?
RAUSCHENBERG:
Yes. It is a single work with five pieces of sculpture.
Each piece has its own voice. The controls are a console unit which
is embedded in one of the pieces; and all five have a sound source.
Each piece can be played independently, because the console has five
volume controls, one for each piece. A scanning mechanism goes across
the radio dials and provides a constant movement, so that what you
control is the speed of scanning. All this gives you the maximum
