Introduction to ArtLab with Reading School of Art students October 2019

In this workshop (part of the material sessions programme, where students from all years take part in optional sessions from painting to performance, documentary film to careers development) we explored a number of sensory and instructional prompts develop from ArtLab’s research over the last few years. Thinking about the actions of circuits and littlebits we considered our collective groups inputs (sensibility, values, experience, mood, feeling, motivations around teaching and learning), put these through processes; manipulation (of material, clay, electronic circuits, language) and translation (audible to tactile, tactile to linguistic, 2d to 3d, 3d to 2d, memory into action, physical to virtual/digital). Ending with outputs; a set of objects which are then combined into a final collective outcome and exist in multiple real and virtual forms (object, digital image/model, story, experience).

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Above are a small selection of images from digital models and augmented reality.

Some examples of exercises we began, and hope to return to are;

-Listen and respond; Silent disco headphones listening to whale sounds while working clay. (10 mins)

-Noting sensory and emotive words prompted by engagement with clay, objects produced etc.

-Selecting a single word, generating a vector file and learning to operate the laser cutter to produce a word-object

-splicing this word with the clay object

-trial and error testing with littlebits

-Qlone scanning of objects, exploring and reproducing in AR

-to be continued – freeform – building screen shots/photos into object, and handing over to group to decide next steps; What does it need?  How you might you make a thing with this kit? Does the object communicate a sound?  Do we need to produce anything else for this to function? What can be applied? What lens can you look through?

Decay whistle by ArtLabUOR on Sketchfab

Parts of these sessions include periods of time working side by side, silently, communicating via objects and written notes, and other activities like trial and error with littlebits were spaces for discussing our formative experiences in education, recognising how we each learn, and what we need to thrive, with a mind to thinking about what we consider valuable in facilitating others learning.