Returning to past stimulus
As a freelance artist i am used to turning up at a school and doing a project for 6 weeks and then disappearing. I can bring exciting things to interact with each week and this is great. But it is important to see how much of the positive reaction the group show is to do with the things i bring or just that i am 'fresh meat' as some schools have kindly phrased it in the past!!
So i brought back things from the different weeks to see if the interaction would be sustained and to check if the group would be able to be self sustaining in the interactions and play.
So this week i brought the speaker and the keyboard back, the microphone and sfx, the magnets, the hula hoops and i did bring one new thing as i couldn't stop myself.
I brought in a Launchpad which is a device with 64 led lit squares on it and you can place a piece of music or a sound effect in each square. People can press individual squares or a can trigger an entire row.
We began by picking sounds from a library and then placing them on the squares people could then get the concept and start playing with composing using the Launchpad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuV7L4bRkuo this video shows a more advanced player but the concept is the same.
The group again waited patiently for their turn to choose sounds and then to play with them. I have a very large sample library so we a wide mixture of sounds were chosen dubstep basslines, arabic and indian percussion, japanese flutes and trancey synths.
Each person found ways to find their own sounds and reacted differently to their sounds. Some with light hearted surprise and fun, others with a strong sensory connection.
One member was really into the bass and again this made him really present and made it much easier to connect and share his experience.
I had specifically brought this activity for one member who was not there for the session and was really happy that everyone else seemed to engage with it so well. again it can be quite conceptual that the sound is in this square but everyone seemed to get it.
While people were playing i then setup the speaker, the mic, the magnets and then just let people explore and play.
The group seemed to connect with everything, especially the speaker and lentils!! And we could then watch, play and have fun.
People were again mixing the activities which was great.
You can record your voice into the Launchpad, and then play it back through the kaoss pad and then you could connect that to the speaker. We didn't have time to set it up but you could combine alot of the activities into one complex system where you could input your voice or choose sounds, manipulate them visually and physically using the kaosspad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39n4wow8fWE (very silly video but shows kaosspad ability) and then have that sound go into a large speaker with something on it, or even create a platform with a big sub bass speaker in it so you are standing on the vibration.
People did play with the magnets for a while and i began taking out the hula hoops but ran out of time.
The session was great as it showed that people had really got the concepts of the different things i had brought in and also felt comfortable to play with them and to want to share them with other people.
Also over the weeks people had been able to stay focused for longer periods, it felt like that the group had really enjoyed the sessions, and that i had found things which really triggered their creativity and playfulness and by doing this we could play together more and share experiences more. And that the group were able to deal with different sensory experinces each week, without too much leading and direction they could play with them and not be overwhelmed as they controlled the experience.
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