04 Jul 08

The school pupils turned shoes and teddy bears into electronic instruments

Pupils from The Henry Box School in Witney have been exploring the boundaries between art, music and science at a ‘Firelighter’ workshop with the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art.

The 15 pupils, aged 14 and 15 and identified by their teachers as being gifted and talented, are working with Renegade Electrons, two artists and musicians who specialise in ‘circuit bending’ - creating experimental audio from discarded toys and electronics.

Pupils have been designing and making their own experimental sculptural instruments, by cannibalising parts from discarded electronic devices, before they take part in a performance and record their work this afternoon.

Jon Roome, a member of Renegade Electrons and Head of Electronic Media at The Ruskin, says: 'They’re using Speak & Spells from the 80’s and other stuff they’ve bought in – any kind of electronic toys. They take something apart and then they find out what that is. It’s explorative learning, rather than from a textbook. The learning is wherever your interests take you, and that’s the interesting thing because then you’re very motivated about what you want to learn.'

‘It’s also about expanding their view of what art is, showing them that what goes on at art school now might be quite different to what they are studying at school. It can include painting and it can include sculpture but it also includes all these wider activities, which could lead to electronics, advertising or music.’

The three day workshop is designed to increase aspiration amongst pupils and promote creative thinking and learning across the disciplines of science, music and art. This pilot workshop was organised by The Ruskin following conversations with local art teachers and advisors and it is hoped the scheme will be able to be expanded to other schools in the future.

Jon Roome and the second member of Renegade Electrons, Mick Lawton, have been guiding the students as they rewire circuits and reconnect them in new ways, turning things like shoes and teddy bears into something that will help them create electronic music.

This afternoon’s performance is going to be put on iTunes and Jon expects them to produce something interesting: ‘I’m hoping they can be aware of what everyone else is doing and the whole thing they are creating. It’s a jam, it’s collaborative. I hope we can continue to experiment, because it’s all been an experiment. It’s kind of high risk – you’ve got 8 or 9 computers networked together with them all putting their own things in but that’s the exciting thing.’

Today is the last day of the workshop and pupils and teachers have been invited to have lunch at Christ Church College before returning to record their work.