DigitalCritic

For the last two years I’ve been teaching a set of deeply inspiring students at Writtle College. During this time, when I’ve uttered the name ‘Writtle College’ at a range of arts events it has been met almost exclusively with the answer: ‘I’m sorry, where?’

Well, I’ll tell you where!

You’ve heard of Goldsmiths? Yes? And the Glasgow School of art? Yes? Well, I teach somewhere that’s ranked higher than both of them in the Art and Design section of the Guardian University Guide 2012. In fact, it must be really quite embarrassing for you to admit you hadn’t heard of Writtle College because, oh, look, it’s ranked 4^th!!!

Yes, you read that right, 4^th!!! You feel a bit silly now don’t you?!

I really couldn’t be more proud or impressed at the sterling work of my Writtle colleagues and students, and last night’s end of year exhibition of student’s work served as the ultimate demonstration of this – utterly deserved – outstanding score.

Estella presented us with her response to the remit of working with ‘systems and chance’ in a way that tied in with an overarching theme of landscape and environment. Inexplicably, Estella had been tuning a small harp prior to the class and I was already a little bit distracted by that – harps are just so incredibly magical aren’t they?! Anyway, the work itself is a musical score built from data about the heights and names of the Colorado Rocky Mountains of her much-loved homeland. To be honest, she had me already when she showed the mountainous note range she’d plotted (which you can see in the image I’ve borrowed above), but when she played this transferred emotional and statistical information on her harp, I totally welled-up. (And have I mentioned that Estella is only a few months into the course?!) There was something so engaging in the movement of this material into a musical form that it really conjured up an experience of the mountains as we sat in our Essex studio. Oh my god I’m going to cry again – I guess when something moves you, it just moves you!

Now, Estella has turned the idea into a collaboration by offering the score on a website so that people can play the music themselves and send her their own versions. It’s such a great extension of the project which lets it resonate more widely and I urge you – if you can play an instrument, because I can’t – to join in.