Angie Kim: Midterm Portfolio – #5 Audio Descriptions of Captions
Project Description:
This is a collaborative work between me and my sister, to explore the possibility of body language as a poetic communication and decoding its visuals with audio description.
I asked her to write me a letter – handwritten text – and made her not to show it to me but instead dance to describe the contents.
The format and length was completely up to her. After I got the video, I tried to see what it’s happening and describe it verbally.
Documentation:
Transcript:
This is a description of 5 minute abstract dance flow.
The dance is based on the dancer’s undisclosed letter to her sister.
As the dancer wanted viewers to freely imagine a story with her movement, some descriptions are not depicting the exact movements she is doing.
Some are based on pure imagination.
The dancer is a female in her 20s, with short black hair is standing still. On the left is a bright red right.
Dance starts with music.
She is raising her left arm.
while waving her left arm to left and right, she makes an L shape with the arm until the elbow reaches her eye level.
She gently moves her hand, as if she’s touching a small, versatile sphere.
She slowly moves her right body, slowly moving towards right.
She makes a fist, then releases tension while moving her both arms like a gentle breeze. Her fingers are tinkering as she is touching wind.
She tickles her right arm. While moving her fingers like playing a piano, she slowly moves towards right as if something is pulling her.
She gently moves back, while moving her arms and fingers in front of her body as if she trying to unlock and open a door with a lock made of flower.
After the opening movement, she hugs herself. She seems tired. she is lifting herself.
She covers her eyes as if she’s seeing a bright sun.
She seems like crying. she seems like releasing the emotions out.
Her movements get faster. She makes fists in front of her right eye as if she’s trying to find something with telescope.
She goes deep down to the ground but slowly, and gradually, gets up and stands up.
She moves her arms up, then moves them left and right. She moves her shoulder and spread the arms widely open.
She seems to be more confident. She is aiming something like an archer.
Her movements get bigger. She’s pulling something from the ground. She’s pulling something out from her head.
She holds the thing on her left and and try to to see it.
The thing seems to become a thread, and then a pen, and she’s drawing something with it. Then it became a computer keyboard.
She lets it go.
She seems hungry.
She seems so tired.
She tries to walk but don’t have energy.
But she want to do something.
She want to absorb everything she see and she wants to feel everything she experiences.
It makes a small line in front of her. She’s stepping on the line, feeling her arms becoming her wings.
Reflection questions:
How is that theme particularly expressed through the modality of the week?
As the dancer wanted viewers to freely imagine a story with her movement, some descriptions are not depicting the exact movements she is doing. Some are based on pure imagination. I tried to combine both my personal views and informative description to give more of contextual/artistic depiction of her moves. Also the process really made me to focus on all the details of each move and made me decide what is more important than others, while enabling me to understand more about her expressions.
Which elements of the work are beautifully/wonderfully/perfectly expressed through the modality?
I personally loved my own experience while making this piece. It really helped me to dive deeper to emotional language of body movements and made me really think about the possibility of audio description (or even captioning, description of visual language overall). And with the description it feels like my interpretation (the audio) is part of the work itself, not just a complimentary accessibility feature.
Which elements are lost or inexpressible through the modality of the week?
The original intention and emotion of her moves are lost as I don’t have any context to the contents. It was partly because of the intention of my work but it also made me think about the importance of collaborating with an artist for a audio description from the beginning of work to the end of the production.
Next Step
I’ll finish describing the remaining parts and will go through feedback. Then I’m planning to make stereo two track audio – one ear will be hearing the audio description and the other ear will hear the decoded text or the original letter contents.
Additional Modality:
I’m making a series of haptic objects based on this piece and others – and thinking of making installation ideas for this piece.