Pixel, Palette & Pitch: The Art of Seeing Sound

Pixel, Palette & Pitch: The Art of Seeing Sound is a two-part workshop for OCA students at any level with a theme of the intersection of visual arts and music, exploring how these two mediums inspire and inform each other.  Participants will engage in playful activities, collaborative projects, and discussions to investigate the integration of sight and sound. OCA tutor and programme leader for music Carla Rees, will facilitate the discussion and provide prompts and ideas.

The first Pixel, Palette & Pitch session will be about immersion and experimentation. We will consider the concept of synaesthesia—where one sensory experience involuntarily evokes another—and how this rare phenomenon inspires artists and musicians to explore the sensory overlaps between sight and sound. We’ll look at how sound can influence the visual art process, using music as a direct inspiration for colour choice, form, and movement in your creative process.

Students will be encouraged to experiment with a variety of materials and soundscapes to create visual art that responds to and reflects the sounds or music they hear. That could be through textiles, pencil, ink, digital art tools, paint, collage, photography and more, as you discover how auditory and visual elements can not only coexist but enhance and transform each other.

Building on these experiments, the second session of the workshop emphasizes collaboration and the collective creation process. Students will be divided into small groups, each tasked with creating a piece of art based around the themes discussed. This collaborative effort will encourage you to blend your individual insights and explorations into a cohesive project that reflects the group's ideas.

The session will culminate in a mini-exhibition, where each group will present their work, sharing their process, the challenges they faced, and how they overcame them to achieve a final outcome.

Throughout both sessions, Pixel, Palette & Pitch promises a deeply sensory experience, filled with opportunities for experimentation, play, and discovery, as well as a chance to connect with fellow students. Whether you're an artist looking to incorporate sound into your visual practice, a musician interested in the visual dimensions of sound, or simply someone curious about the spaces where art forms intersect, this workshop will offer fresh perspectives and hopefully inspire you to see and hear the world in new, exciting ways.

This is a free two-part event supported by funding from OCASA. To register, please add your details to this list. Each session will run from 10am to approx 12.30pm

Keeping up Momentum is an initiative to inspire, motivate and connect OCA students, led by Helen Rosemier, helen416376@oca.ac.uk

Image by OCA student Steve Meyfroidt, created for The Shonai Collective's new album Epiphany