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Catalog Data

Artist:
Robert Watts, born Burlington, IA 1923-died Bangor, PA 1988  Search this
David Behrman, born Salzburg, Austria 1937  Search this
Bob Diamond, born New York City 1946  Search this
Medium:
hybrid sound/video installation with custom electronics
Dimensions:
dimensions variable
Type:
Media Arts
Date:
1974-1979
Exhibition Label:
Cloud Music is a synthesis of sound and image, the result of a collaboration between three artists: Robert Watts, David Berhman, and Bob Diamond. A closed-circuit video camera is directed through a window to the sky. A video analyzer and audio synthesizer read the image on a TV monitor, transforming the movement of clouds and changing light into an original score of music that transports the natural environment into the gallery for a new and immersive audio-visual experience. The result is an electronic score that fills the space with subtly shifting harmonics. Visitors listen to video as a nature-driven event unfolds in real-time. As sound is composed from light, Cloud Music is at once a conceptual homage to “chance” and a technological triumph that inspires a new means to experience the world.
Watch This!: Revelations in Media Art, 2015
Topic:
Performing arts\music  Search this
Landscape\weather\cloud  Search this
Credit Line:
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Copyright:
© 1979, Robert Watts Estate, David Behrman, Bob Diamond
Object number:
2013.64
Restrictions & Rights:
Usage conditions apply
See more items in:
Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
Department:
Time-Based Media Art
Data Source:
Smithsonian American Art Museum
GUID:
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk7de13e40f-1f92-4295-81be-dcd356b98929
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:saam_2013.64