Cloud Music

Robert Watts, David Behrman, Bob Diamond, Cloud Music, 1974-1979, hybrid sound/video installation with custom electronics, dimensions variable, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2013.64, © 1979, Robert Watts Estate, David Behrman, Bob Diamond

Artwork Details

Title
Cloud Music
Date
1974-1979
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
dimensions variable
Copyright
© 1979, Robert Watts Estate, David Behrman, Bob Diamond
Credit Line
Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums Description
hybrid sound/video installation with custom electronics
Classifications
Subjects
  • Landscape — weather — cloud
  • Performing arts — music
Object Number
2013.64

Artwork Description

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

Works by this artist (10 items)

Carrie Mae Weems, Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me - A Story in 5 Parts, 2012, video installation and mixed media, color, sound; 18:29 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the American Women's History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative, 2023.9A-G, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me — A Story in 5 Parts
Date2012
video installation and mixed media, color, sound; 18:29 minutes
Not on view
Carrie Mae Weems, Suspended Belief, from the series Constructing History, 2008, archival pigment print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2022.48.5, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Suspended Belief, from the series Constructing History
Date2008
archival pigment print
Not on view
Carrie Mae Weems, A Woman Observes, from the series Constructing History, 2008, archival pigment print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2022.48.1, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
A Woman Observes, from the series Constructing History
Date2008
archival pigment print
Not on view

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Salvatore Mancini, Narragansett Electric, 2000, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Joseph A. Chazan, M.D., 2002.80.8
Narragansett Electric
Date2000
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Salvatore Mancini, Remains of Lock, Millville, 2000, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Joseph A. Chazan, M.D., 2002.80.6
Remains of Lock, Millville
Date2000
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Keisha Scarville, Chair, 2001, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Perkins Center for the Arts, 2002.17, © 2001, Keisha Scarville
Chair
Date2001
gelatin silver print
Not on view
Salvatore Mancini, Eel Fisherman, 2000, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Joseph A. Chazan, M.D., 2002.80.2
Eel Fisherman
Date2000
gelatin silver print
Not on view