Sound and Mark Making -Tuesday 20th, Wednesday 21st, Friday 23rd September 2011

Developing from the drawing from touch excercise on Friday, we now look at mark making using sound as a source.
Both exercises are designed to help us make the familiar unfamiliar, so drawing becomes a process through which we rediscover, explore and learn from our environment.

John Cage on Silence - link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y

John Cage 4'33" - link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN2zcLBr_VM

John Cage Bachanalle for prepared Piano link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0BwwF9cLwM&feature=fvst

Please view all of the above to familiarise yourself with them and how they might best be used.

Cage's quote from Duchamp
'to reach the impossibility of transferring, from one like image to another, the imprint of memory'

In the Bachanalle for prepared piano there are two natural breaks at 2'11" and again at 3'46"
Once a certain amount of time has been spent to allow in the student  to experiment individually with marks that respond to sound in their sketch pads or on large sheets - or both, they might then divide into groups of 3 and make collaborative pieces by rotating at the two points tabulated above to work on the next drawing (does this make sense?).
The results could then be used to put together a 'video/videos' for the track.

It might be useful to let them experience 4'33" and dsicuss the notion of ambient sound and listening.
They may also try to work in silence and to express in marks the background noise they hear, creating a 'visual soundscape' of their new environment.

I hope this is helpful.
These are suggetsions, obviously, to be developed in whatever way seems appropriate in the time.
My feeling is that this may not last all 3 days. Perhaps other music could be gathered.

Have a good weekend,
Claire