Make Your Mark
October 2004, Tate Modern
Be inspired by sound to create drawings with your body! This
activity examines a sound collage by the contemporary artist Bruce
Nauman, called ‘Raw Materials’. Nauman worked with
22 audio recordings to create a collage of sound. Speakers throughout
the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern broadcast the sound in different
areas of the hall.
For this activity we worked in pairs and used the sounds from
the Nauman sound collage. Person A listened to the sound from
one of the speakers in the Turbine Hall, while Person B put on
headphones to block out the sound. Person A acted out the movements
that the sound made them feel, either by dancing, moving around,
or miming. Person B watched Person A and then drew their movements
on paper, making a map of the actions. We swapped over and then
showed our motion drawings to each other and talked about how
the lines described the movements we made.
Top tips!
- Find a partner and choose which one of you will
be Person A and which will be Person B.
- Make sure Person B has earplugs, headphones or something
else to mute out any sounds.
- Be inspired by music on the radio, on a CD, or on
tape. You can also listen to the sounds outdoors in your neighbourhood.
- Person A: what motions and movements do the sounds
make you feel like doing?
- Person B: what kind of lines, curves, dots or other
marks can show the kind of movements that Person A is making?
- What words describe the kind of movements and drawings
the sounds have inspired you to do?
- When you’ve done the activity, switch roles
and have a turn doing the other person’s job.
Activity invented by Ben (23) and Maya (21), Raw Canvas team members, inspired by Bruce Nauman.
For more information on Raw Canvas check out http://www.tate.org.uk/rawcanvas |
