Integrated Audio Description as a choreographic framing device for weird and experimental performance
Audio Description is a narrative format that communicates visual elements to a Blind or Visually Impaired person, making the content accessible. When Audio Description is integrated into a performance, it becomes part of the artwork with no clear distinction between Audio Description and the other performed material.
I’m curious about the potential of Audio Description as a guiding tool into experimental and weird work. I value the word ‘weird’ as it’s been the most common word people use to describe my work and I embrace it as a term to understand a genre of work which often defies categorisation and refuses to be easily understood. The tension between the act of describing and the manifestation of art which by nature wants to avoid description is intriguing. Through this research I want to expand and elevate the form that Audio Description can be disseminated through, and understand its capabilities to exist both as an access function and as art.
Vision is subjective but Audio Description tries to be objective. The act of looking is influenced by culture, socio-economic status, age, race and gender. For Visually Impaired people, description is vital to access art, and for sighted people it can guide the process of looking, encourage critical analysis and stimulate imagination. It is an opportunity to engage with something that would otherwise be reduced to the word ‘weird’.
