[accessibleimage] art, games, theater



Actors Who See With More Than Their Eyes
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” so dependent on sights misperceived and incongruous, makes a fascinating choice for Theater by the Blind, a company that blends actors who are blind and vision-impaired with those who have full sight. But perhaps the most delightful extra layer of meaning in the production at the Barrow Group Theater comes not from Shakespeare’s references to the eyes but from the presence of a wheelchair on the stage. 
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/theater/reviews/06drea.html?scp=30&sq=&st=nyt


January 21, 2007
Works to Touch by Artists Who Can’t See
By JANE GORDON
Correction Appended

Hartford
THE new exhibition at the Conrad L. Mallett Art Gallery at Capitol Community College differs from other exhibitions in at least one respect: touching the art is allowed, even encouraged.
“We’re thinking of having the guards here say: ‘Yes! You can touch,’ ” said Pedro Valentin, the college’s art instructor and the exhibition’s curator.
But there is another difference: this exhibition showcases the work of several Connecticut artists who are blind. In particular, it displays the art of David Waite of Mansfield, who lost his sight over eight days in 1997 from a combination of diabetes and Graves’ disease. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/21ctblind.html?_r=1&sq=&st=nyt&oref=slogin&scp=31&pagewanted=print


A brush with art project
May 22 2008 by Hazel Ettienne, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
PARTIALLY-sighted and blind children and young people helped to create a colourful mural at Huddersfield Sports Centre.
Members of multi-sports group the Huddersfield Actionnaires – run by national charity Action for Blind People – got creative with recycled emulsion paint, brightening up a corridor between the climbing wall and the squash courts.
They were among many other sports centre users to attend a community art day organised by Huddersfield artists Dave and Emily Cowan, Carlos Flowerday and Jenny Parkin along with Kirklees Active Leisure.
The 30ft long display was created with unwanted paint from left-over home decorating and has been named The Butterfly Wall.
The Actionnaires, who meet on Saturdays at the sports centre, all have different levels of vision and set to work at painting in their own ways. Twelve-year-old Mehreen – a keen rock climber who has no sight at all – asked for red paint and then made her contribution by touch.
Ian Spencer, sports development officer for Action for Blind People, said: “The Actionnaires is all about enabling blind and partially-sighted young people to take part in new activities and this was a great opportunity to be involved in an exciting project that will leave a lasting display.”
The aim of the project, which started with the artists painting a pillar in totem pole colours, is to celebrate the sports centre in its final years and encourage users to think about what this important building means to them.
Seven-year-old Kamau McAllum from Fartown was joined by his mum, Jackie, who remembers the Queen visiting the sports centre.
She said: “It was a really sunny day and everyone in the flats and in the Inland Revenue building were looking down on events in the street below from their open windows.” 
http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/tm_headline=a-brush-with-art-project%26method=full%26objectid=20945942%26print_version=1%26siteid=86081-name_page.html

Toronto
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/428356
Women's Art Association Gallery (23 Prince Arthur Ave.): Works by visually impaired artist Judith Muir are on display Fri.-Sun. 





Void explores world of blind climber John
A unique exhibition hosted by Derry's Void Gallery, Touchtone Test Piece, is an exploratory art project based on a local blind person's experiences of climbing.
Over the last fifteen years Dan Shipsides has developed an art practice which uses climbing to think creatively about the spaces around us - in particular landscape spaces and ideas about what landscape is or could be.
Over the last few years he's been taking John, a blind man from Derry, climbing regularly. This activity has been aimed at thinking how to capture or describe something of this landscape experience. One approach to achieve this was by attaching tiny micro cameras to John's fingers, backpack and feet in order to record "finger tip" footage of his climbing, footage which led directly to Dan Shipsides subsequent exploratory project - 'Echo Valley/A Guiding Dilemma'.
John said of his experiences: "I have no sight at all - so I didn't have any fear climbing – it probably helps not to have any idea of what 20 metres looks like from above. As long as it feels safe I enjoy the climbing and I don't have any fear - it doesn't come into my mind. The only time I'm scared of heights is in my dreams." 
The exhibition will run until June 20.
http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Void-explores-world-of-blind.4104523.jp



‘Cape Folk’ features unique people and their art
And maybe, she says, it’s about people who have a folksy sense of being. People like Phyllis Sklar who makes jewelry and whimsical paintings. Or Janice Frishkopf who is legally blind, or, more accurately, living with extremely low vision, who manages to paint exquisite patterned canvases. 

http://www.provincetownbanner.com/article/arts_article/_/58277/Arts/5/22/2008


New Video Game Tech Allows Visually Impaired vs. Sighted Player Competition
Advances in video game technology usually mean better graphics or new online gaming options, but a team at MIT has taken the Nintendo Wii's innovative three-dimensional controller and used it to create something completely new - a video game that visually impaired and sighted players can play together. AudiOdyssey is a music-based game similar to Guitar Hero that presents a level playing field to all players, whether they can see the screen or not. AudiOdyssey Night at your local bar can't be far behind.
AudiOdyssey was developed because an MIT grad student looked into games designed for the visually impaired, and found that all of them were designed solely for blind people to play. Sighted people couldn't play them successfully because they weren't as good at reading audio and tactile cues. That meant that a group of blind and sighted friends couldn't hang out together and play the same games.
Using the Wiimote (or just a computer keyboard), AudiOdyssey players build up audio tracks played by a DJ in the game's fictional nightclub. If they layer the tracks properly and create a good song, the club's patrons will fill the dance floor. The game is early in its development, and can be downloaded for free. A more advanced version is in the works. 
http://io9.com/391915/new-video-game-tech-allows-visually-impaired-vs-sighted-player-competition
ScienceDaily (May 19, 2008) — A new computer game developed by MIT and Singaporean students makes it possible for visually impaired people to play the game on a level field with their sighted friends.
The game, called AudiOdyssey, simulates a deejay trying to build up a catchy tune and get people dancing. By swinging the remote-control device used by the Nintendo Wii, which senses motion, the player can set the rhythm and lay down one musical track after another, gradually building up a richer musical track.
Eitan Glinert, a graduate student in computer science at the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab, says that the introduction of the Wii controller attracted many women and older players for the first time to the world of videogames. "Lots of people who had never played video games were now playing them all the time," he says. "I started to think, who's been left out? What groups are left behind even with all the new technology, these new systems?" 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080515214926.htm

AudiOdyssey download
http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/audiodyssey.php



Winners Announced in Dimension 3D Printing Group's Extreme Redesign Contest
Bredemus, the high school category winner, submitted a Rubik’s Cube-like puzzle design that can be played by the blind as well as those who have sight. The puzzle is spherical, easy to grip and has sides made of triangles, pentagons and squares – shapes that can be felt as well as seen. 
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/winners-announced-in-dimension-3d-printing-groups-extreme-redesign-contest,402177.shtml


Inspired responses to good causes
Marion Phelps, 92, blind in one eye and a resident at Château Dollard, is beautiful inside and out, Wizenberg said. Her drawing of a barn will be on auction. 
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=5f60c1a5-79bc-4317-899f-f597156e91c0


Aristic achievers overcome the odds
May 20, 2008
MICHAEL ADRIAANSEN is 20 years old, blind, deaf, has cerebral palsy and, thanks to an award-winning program, has become an artist.
He is one of 30 disabled young adults who attend Lavender Cottage at Baulkham Hills, part of North-West Disability Services.
The program, called "access2arts", has opened the door to artistic self-expression for Michael and has won an award for Baulkham Hills Council in this year's Local Government cultural awards.
The success of the program culminated in an end-of-year exhibition to recognise the International Day of People with a Disability.
"Michael uses his whole body in his individual art works and they have such a unique quality that they are in demand," the co-ordinator at Lavender Cottage, Frances Farrugia, said. In one group abstract painting he used the wheels of his wheelchair to track red paint across the canvas 
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/artistic-achievers-overcome-the-odds/2008/05/19/1211182703347.html


Artists transcend disabilities in exhibit
Last October a story ran in the New York Times about the remarkable transformation of people with various forms of mental disabilities when taken on a private guided tour of the Museum of Modern Art.
A retired police officer who had shown increasing signs of depression seemed to recover his old sense of humor and charm. A glum octogenarian in the middle stages of Alzheimer's disease suddenly became articulate and assured when asked to express his opinion on various modern masterpieces. A retired editor with short-term memory loss made a rare joke about her lapses, asking the group to stop her if they'd heard her story before.
And these changes didn't fade when the group left the museum, the story reported. Patients' moods were improved for hours and even days, while their symptoms diminished in a variety of ways and they had spates of unexpected expressiveness and insight.
No one really knows why art would have such a palpable, albeit (for now) temporary aid to cognitive abilities.
Educators have long touted the benefits of music on brain function. The Institute for Music and Neurologic Function in the Bronx has studied the phenomenon for 20 years. But no comparable work has been done in the visual arts. .......
Bramblitt, on the other hand, began to make art after he lost his sight to a rare visual disorder. While he had sketched and doodled all his life, he had never tried painting until he had become blind and turned to the medium in an act of angry defiance.
Interestingly, painting not only brought him a sense of peace, he discovered he had the ability to conceive and hold an entire painting in his memory, completing it by touch.
A self-taught artist, Bramblitt developed his technique using dimensional fabric paint to draw raised lines on the canvas that he can then follow once he begins to paint. Once the line drawing is complete, Bramblitt adds color with oil paints, feeling the canvas as he paints.....http://www.ohio.com/entertainment/19052359.html
A video on Bramblitt's working process is on view, together with a video interview of renowned pop artist Chuck Close, in the museum's Jerry and Patsy Shaw Video Box on the second floor, next to the entrance to the Haslinger Family Foundation Galleries.
The widely publicized watercolor Dare Me (2006) by Julie Cohn epitomizes the outlook of the multitalented artist who runs her own arts and entertainment company. 
http://www.ohio.com/entertainment/19052359.html

Other related posts: