Exploring macro photography and darkroom environments to create sonic visual photographs. The perspective is warped as the viewer looks immediately and beyond the carved paper.

First pilot event for Whitworth Young Contemporaries. View event here!

Plotting sound samples from the grid cities of Venice, Chandigarh and New York using Ableton, I transposed these into 3D paper shapes by plotting a 4 x 4 grid area with each section correlating to a different sound, When the participant/composer selects a combination of 4 sounds to create a unique soundscape on the Ableton session window, these correlating physical areas were cut out of the material paper grids. Thereby seeing the the 3D shape of the soundscape.

These forms were created using simple cutting techniques, beginning with a continuous line drawing and then creating space for movement by removing sections with a cutting knife. Shining a simple light through them produces interesting and a little haunting shadows and feeling.

Circuit is a new national project led by Tate transforming how young people 15-25 interact with and think about art galleries!

Whitworth Art Gallery asked me to project manage the first stage and digital strand of this journey, to creatively consult Mancunian young people through the question ‘How do you connect with art?’. We worked with 8 different youth groups in Manchester, some who were and some who weren’t already engaged in the arts

Each workshop included an arts activity that they may not have tried before,  highlighted ways they could get involved with Circuit and consultation activities to find out…

• What are the young people in to right now – culturally or social
• How they communicate and share tastes + information
• What their ambitions and hopes for the future are
• What they thought about art galleries

Circuit Manchester Film

We created a film that responded to this question that gave us a picture of young peoples views in the city.

Circuit Blog

I documented the project through a dedicated blog that had a post for each youth group we worked with. The blog contains short videos and images of the sessions and outlines the key findings and opinions from each group. click on the link here…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Workshops and approaches

I was keen to offer a wide range of artistics mediums, we delivered session in

• screenprinting at the skatepark
• musical theatre + visual art connections
• beatboxing and soundscapes
• wire sculpture
• photomontage
• photography and fashion
• cyanatype photography

Human Bar Chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the very start of a four year project that will culminate in a youth festival right here in Manchester. Its going to be interesting!

is one of eight participating galleries, setting out on a journey to engage young people to arts and galleries by offering a programme of exciting arts opportunities,  talent & creative skills development, links to artists and industry and leadership opportunities.

Vicky Clarke

Circuit Digital Strand Project Manager, Whitworth Art Gallery

Inspired by Russian Sound artists of the 1920’s , including Arseny Avraamov and Leon Theremin I devised this KS2 experimental sound project with Dave Birchall. The aims were to

• Introduce the notion of experimental music and sound, raising the awareness of sound in their daily lives through keeping sound diaries
• Develop listening skills
• Introduce key sound artists including John Cage & Joseph Bueys
• Make junk instruments
• Create a Graphical score and look at the links between symbols and sound
• Create their own soundscapes
• Perform as ‘Noise Orchestra’!

Sound Drawing

Throughout the sessions we undertook Sound Drawing exercises through listening to a wide range of soundscapes and field recordings encouraging the young people to draw how the sound made them feel and what they thought the sound looked like. Over the project we assembled a Sound Dictionary containing all the descriptive words we had come across when talking about sound. We asked the group to keep sound diaries at home and write down or draw reflections on different activities or times of the day.

Junk Instruments and Graphical Scores

Working in teams we created four different types of instrument, these were straw flutes, tubes, shakers and drums. Through playing these instruments the groups had to decide on a variety of symbols that related to the specific sounds they could make from the materials. Taking turns we then organised ourselves into the noise orchestra and drew a graphical score which we performed at the final session.

Performance!

Taking it in turns to conduct we performed our tracks in the final session. Each sound had it’s own symbol and was painted onto a huge graphical score with a key. Check out the video below…

To accompany the miniature theatre show of ‘The Icebook’ (worlds first projection mapped pop up book and part of the Big Imaginations childrens theatre festival) I ran a Big Draw workshop for audience members who had watched the show. The show itself is a magical experience using paper, light and projections. I wanted to reflect the aesthetics of the show and run a fun and engaging workshop for adults and children alike.

The workshop

Teenagers of Manchester & New York City Unite!

Summer 2013 and we have teamed up with Rush Philanthropic Youth Arts Centre in Brooklyn, New York City to explore what it is like to be a teenager in Manchester and NYC. We will be looking at language, music, street style, history and culture and creating a digital map of our city that tells the story of what it’s like to be a teenager in Manchester today.

On the project we;

• Learned about life in Brooklyn and what is important to teens
• Worked with MC Visceral to create a Manchester poem
• Created a visual timeline of key historical events and inventions
• Made an Urban Dictionary and compared the language with slang from NYC
• Visited Museum of Science & Industry to find out about our industrial heritage
• Interviewed teenagers around Manchester
• Screen printed a map that will be sent over to Rush

Project Blog… click below

The young people created a blog to support and document our project, so please click on the link or the image to see what they young people got up to.

http://mcrvsnyc.wordpress.com/

Here are a few pictures from the project…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beside the Seaside was a fun, creative and colourful summer project for little people aged 7-11. The children worked with me for a week taking part in holiday themed activities.

The children learned how to make their own sketchbooks out of a variety of found paper and material scraps. We also ran holiday drawing challenges and experimental sound drawing exercises using seaside soundscapes and weird sonic clips. We used oil pastels to make our own multi-coloured starfish and created 3D Paper sandcastle hats complete with turrets!

Paper Sandcastle Hats

The children created these paper sculptures using paper of different colours and textures, working together to carefully measure each others heads and make their 2D and 3D turrets and flags. The session involved design, decoration and construction skills and the results were fantastic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oil Pastel Starfish