5 Make Connections

 

Student population: Public high or middle school students residing on the Connecticut shoreline with diverse levels of artistic experience and engagement.

Classroom Potential of Scanography:
Scanography bridges hands-on artmaking and digital practices, allowing students to engage physically with materials while developing digital skills. By arranging objects and experimenting with movement on the scanner bed, students expand their understanding of composition, layering, transparency, and visual relationships. This fast production medium enables students to quickly learn its properties through experimentation, regardless of their prior artistic experience.

One of the most compelling aspects of scanography is the wide range of objects students can incorporate. When students bring personal items to scan, their work becomes more meaningful and individualized. The use of these personal objects encourages students to explore their identity and communicate personal narratives in their work. 

Classroom Potential of Sound Art:
Sound art offers students an opportunity to explore creative expression beyond, and sometimes in combination with, visual media. By engaging with sound, students develop critical and mindful listening skills, as well as a deeper awareness of their environment. This medium quickly becomes personal as students begin recording sounds from their everyday lives, allowing aspects of their lived experiences to emerge through their soundscapes.

Sound art lends itself to narrative exploration through the arrangement and layering of recordings, often evoking emotion and affecting the listener in a way that is different from, yet equally powerful as, visual media. I am particularly interested in exploring sound with students through a multimodal approach, in which a visual artwork is created alongside a soundscape, allowing each component to extend and enhance the other.