Thinking Visual explored the site of the school as a space of production, transforming it into a studio and stage, tuning into what is at play, interacting and producing new realities through sound and film.
In the autumn term of 2014, Art School invited artists Sven Anderson and John Beattie to work on a project in collaboration with the students and staff at Blessington Community College. In a series of workshops, the artists engaged in processes of responding to their school site with student collaborators using techniques and equipment familiar to each of their practises.
In John Beattie’s workshop sessions, students explored camerawork, throughout the grounds and spaces of the school. Students were shown the work of William Kentridge, how to use a steadicam and how to produce a tracking shot as part of the workshop series. In Sven Anderson’s sessions students learned to manipulate and prepare vinyl, engaged in listening (to their environment and to examples of noise music, John Cage’s ‘silence’ and other challenging examples of working with sound), and created their own sound installation at the school that featured slowly evolving layers of sounds chosen by the students, travelling along four boards of wood fitted with transducers and mounted to the ceiling of an outdoor walkway.