[THE SOUND OF REACHING] – STEPHANIE FARMER

 

 

As we strive for an accessible world, it is important to make new lenses instead of direct mirrors. Sometimes the tangible translations just don’t fit like a puzzle piece into the world of the eye. Instead of trying to reach for an impossible perfection, we try to create something new. The Hudson River is a site of peace, a safe space I can now carry with me in this tactile graphic. I invite you to hold it in your hands and allow your fingers to ride the waves. Notice how they don’t leave you, notice how time is frozen there in your hands. The tide never comes in.

Accessibility

Transcript

[wind pushes]

[us a w ay]

[and sweeps cold]

[through my ears]

[my fingers]

[r e a c h]

[for a place]

[it’s cold there]

[but fLUid]

[so it can’t be held]

[and I won’t hold]

[tactile graphic says]

Stretch

[and I won’t]

The Video’s Visual Descriptions

The video opens with a shot of water textured by the wind into small waves. Sunlight flows down the center of the scene guiding the light toward the horizon. White blurred text appears displaying the transcript one line at a time. The text comes and goes like a wave on the shore. 20 seconds in the water fades to a scene of my hand in front of the waves holding up my tactile graphic. It artificially simulates the texture of a wave through layers of hot glue. As I move the piece around it sparkles in the light. The camera pans up to reveal the New Jersey skyline and I hold up the cardboard to see if it fits better amongst the buildings. Then the video fades into just a scene of the skyline and the water.

Instructions for Interacting with Tactile Graphics

Hold the piece in your hands with your long fingers on the smooth cardboard back and your thumbs on the textured glue. Rub your thumbs along the smooth glue. Feel as the friction warms your fingers and maybe the glue too. Notice how powerful your touch is on this powerful image. Explore the dimensions of the solid water, ride the waves. 

Process Documentations

] I hold the tactile graphic in my hands in front of ice on the concrete ground. The graphic is an inch tall and two inches wide. It has a blue oil pastel base and layers of hot glue that crest over the top edge of the cardboard and catch the sun.

To create this video I traveled to my safe space that inspired the original tactile graphic I made, the pier. Then I recorded the ways the sun glimmers in the sun in front of the waves as they glimmered in the same way. I reached the graphic towards the water as a compare and contrast kind of thing.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS 

How is your theme particularly expressed through the modality of the week? 

I think layering access tools adds to an interesting exploration of tactile graphics because it emphasizes the inability to fit in. Having a perfectly accessible world is going to take a lot of work and there will be a lot of yearning and reaching that needs to take place before disabled people truly feel like they can fit in. For now, our access attempts will be imperfect in the same way my tactile graphic doesn’t exactly reach an exact replica of the waves in the Hudson River. But it is creative and meaningful in a different way as a creative interpretation. 

Which elements of the work are beautifully expressed through the modality? Which elements are lost or inexpressible through the modality of the week?

I think the poetic quality is heightened by the video’s simplicity. Dedicating to creative captions allows for a clean poem that describes the sound as a part of a story. I wanted to do creative captions that referenced sound’s relations to different senses including tactile motions like reaching and holding. I think lost in this modality is the ability to actually hold the graphic in your hands. Without audio description, there is no access for BLV people despite the tactile graphics being created for them.

Who does this project exclude? Who would not be able to interact with this work? Who is this modality not accessible for?

As I said, this modality doesn’t include the BLV community for whom the tactile graphic is an access tool. I think that strongly emphasizes the access friction between deaf and blind people. The only method for success is layering access allowing for a real-life tactile graphic to be accessed simultaneously with the captioned video. 

About the artist

Stephanie a mixed race white passing young woman smiles in warm sunlight. She wears a blue button down.

As a hard-of-hearing advocate for disability justice, Stephanie explores access to the arts as tools for creative translation. Her practice spans many genres as they each provide a new method for accessibility.