Previous AA2A Artist

Rachel Cohen

Year:
2004-05
Project summary:

I travelled from Brighton to Salford for my AA2A scheme. During the residency my idea was to use students as a resource and develop a Generative Drawing project I call 'Chinese Whispers'. It was really useful for gathering material and further expanding the idea. Students were asked to copy simple line drawings as accurately as possible. The copied drawing was then copied by another student and then another and so on. The images changed a little each time and soon became unrecognisable.

In my drawings I superimposed the sequences of 'chinese whisper' copies using different colours. I showed work from the project in the Language Resource Centre as well as the University gallery. As a result it was undoubtedly seen by many more people, including students from all over the world. My aim in choosing Salford was to work across faculties not just with the art department, so it worked very well for me.

Since the scheme finished I have been continuing the research closer to home with Sussex University Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics with funding from the Arts Council. Another outcome of AA2A was working with the North West Regional Language network on the training of community service interpreters. I was commissioned to design a drawing game as part of a textbook to be published.

 

Lamp Post by Rachel Cohen. Photo the artist.

Pencil drawing, 63x42cm