Robert Rauschenberg Mud Muse

 

View Mud Muse video here and part 2 here

The installation of Robert Rauschenberg's "Mud Muse" begins at The Museum of Modern Art with engineer/technician Gunnar Marklund from Moderna Museet at the helm. Rauschenberg's "Mud Muse" (1968-1971) consists of a large metal tank that contains nearly 1000 gallons of bentonite clay mixed with water. Sound-activated pneumatic tubes installed in its base pump air through the mud in response to a tape recording of the sounds of the burbling clay itself.

In 1966 Robert Rauschenberg and the engineer Billy Klüver staged “9 Evenings: Theater and Engineering”, a work that brought the worlds of art and technology together. After the success of “9 Evenings”, Rauschenberg, Klüver, the artist Robert Whitman and the engineer Fred Waldhauer set up “Experiments in Art and Technology” (E.A.T.). E.A.T. was a non-profit foundation that promoted interaction between engineers, artists and industry. Rauschenberg continued to experiment with technology. With the work “Mud Muse” he intended to imitate the blowholes that appear spontaneously along the shore. “Mud Muse” consists of a large metal tank that contains around 1000 gallons of bentonite clay mixed with water, which bubbles and spurts as air is released in response to the sound levels created by the mud bubbling. The work is part of Tate Modern's Robert Rauschenberg retrospective (until April 2, 2017.)

Robert Rauschenberg: Mud Muse (1968-71). Tate Modern, London (UK),.