Gaming the Archive: Replaying Robert Rauschenberg’s Open Score (1966)

>Curated by Sara Szostak

This lecture-performance introduces a playable game that reimagines Robert Rauschenberg’s Open Score (1966) from 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering. In this version, archival audio and visual elements are restructured into dynamic sound mechanics: tennis racquets become virtual instruments, light and darkness form spatial cues, and surveillance-era infrared vision is reborn as a game mechanic.Participants explore a reimagined environment shaped by both historical fidelity and playful distortion of memories. As they navigate the space, sound and light become interface and narrative, translating the technical mishaps and successes of the original into a sonic-driven gameplay. This is not a reenactment, but a reinterpretation that treats technological failure and historical memory as active materials.Though digitally rendered, the work becomes site-specific to Stockholm through its echoes of Swedish avant-garde traditions and experimental media art, inviting players to embody history through play.