Stephanie Farmer: Midterm Portfolio – #3 Captions of Tactile Graphics

Project Description:

For this piece, I chose to use the footage from my audio description project to create a quieter poetic piece. I used the same tactile graphics of the waves that I created from hot glue and cardboard. Then I wanted to be minimalist in my captioning so I continued the theme of trying to fit in with the poem in the captions. I feel like the effort to make something touch a sight comes with certain things just getting lost in translation. Acknowledging the imperfect nature of tactile graphics creates space for poetic expansion through those imperfections.

Documentation:

 

descriptions:

Video Description: 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. 

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]

SLIDE 3 Image descriptions: On the left, is the longer tactile graphic with thinner layers of glue at the top and thicker waves of glue at the bottom. The oil pastel colors peek through. On the right, 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. 

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.