chinese whispers
This is a participatory project in which Rachel Cohen invites gallery visitors and other volunteers to copy her drawings. Each copy is made from the last copy as in the children’s game ‘chinese whispers’. The drawings evolve and the images become abstracted. In another game the artist asks people to put titles to these strange mutating drawings.  
 
For Rachel Cohen this game has itself evolved and continues as a research project into drawing and visual perception involving psychology and neuroscience and biology. The latest version allows for evolution by natural selection.
Art and Psychology Research 2007 in 2007 Rachel Cohen ran a series of experiments based on the Chinese Whispers Drawing game. This research was in collaboration with Sussex University psychologist Ben Dyson and funded by British Academy. Cohen made a collection of drawings of objects and animals that were copied by participants in sequences of 20. These drawings were then shown to different participants in experiments designed to identify at what point the subject of the drawing was recognisable. the results will be published in 2010 in the cognitive psychology journal Perception http://www.perceptionweb.com/contents.cgi?journal=P&volume=forthcominghttp://www.perceptionweb.com/contents.cgi?journal=P&volume=forthcomingshapeimage_1_link_0
More pages of Chinese Whispers
 
natural selection 2009
darwinian big draw 2009
espacos do desenho residency 2008
art and psychology 2007
crane-fly  - a sequence of drawings with titles
translations - animations with sound
experiment 2006 - graphs for matching drawings
paintings and installations at Salford University
geranium animation
Art and Computer Science Research 2006
in 2006 Rachel Cohen ran a pilot project funded by Arts Council England and in consultation with Michaeal O’ Shea and Andrew Philippedes at University of Sussex. The research focused on disintegration of images towards abstraction. An experiment tested the ability of human perception compared with a computer algorithm to recognise likeness and match pairs of drawings.
Natural Selection 2009
inspired by the Darwin bicentenary Rachel Cohen developed a version of chinese whispers drawing where participants choose to copy one of set of drawings and thus a population evolves. This game was played at museums and galleries with visitors of all ages and using drawings made by children.
see new pages Darwinian big draw and natural selection