David Tudor and Composers Inside Electronics Inc. Rainforest V (variation 1)

Rainforest V (variation 1) (1973–2015), conceived by David Tudor and realized by Composers Inside Electronics Inc., is a sound installation constructed from everyday objects, such as a metal barrel, a vintage computer hard disc, and plastic tubing, which are fitted with sonic transducers and suspended in space to increase their resonance.

Tudor’s first Rainforest, from 1968, served as the musical score for choreographer Merce Cunningham’s dance of the same name. In 1973, working together with a group of young artists and musicians, Tudor expanded the work from a musical composition to a performance installation titled Rainforest IV. Composer Gordon Mumma described their collective artistic process as “a garden of shared ideas with minimal fences.” The group would later be named Composers Inside Electronics (CIE) (active 1973–present), and to this day includes John Driscoll and Phil Edelstein, among others. Tudor continued to work with CIE on multiple iterations of Rainforest over the next several decades. This last evolution of the work, Rainforest V (variation 1), transforms an installation once activated by performers into a rich visual environment animated by a computer program.

To inaugurate the Studio, MoMA’s dedicated space for live art, CIE will create a new realization of Tudor’s rarely performed Forest Speech (1976) through a collaborative workshop of musicians and artists working across generations and approaches. Check the link above for the schedule.​

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website