by Elena Loi
Through my internship with Art Spark TX underneath Celia Hughes, I came to truly understand Celia’s statement of how “we cannot create an equal experience, but instead aim for a more equitable one”.
Alt Text: A portrait of Elena with quote included that reads “we cannot create an equal experience, but instead aim for a more equitable one”.
Sitting in the auditorium of the Performing Arts Center for the showing of MJ: The Musical while listening to Celia’s audio description of the event, I realized that so much cannot be conveyed in the few moments where no speaking or music is happening. It was my first experience with audio description and although she had joked that I could turn it off if I found her talking too annoying, I was completely invested in what I could take away from the experience. The over-the-ear earpiece hurt, especially over time and when it bumped against my ear piercings; I was constantly worried that I would distract the people around me with the receiver’s green light; and I was so paranoid that if I played the receiver loud enough to where I could hear it over blaring music and singing, that somehow, the people around me would hear it and get annoyed. Aside from that, as someone who knew little about theater plays or musicals, I found the special effects and the lighting to be the best part and yet it’s extremely hard to explain this through audio description without talking over the lines or the singing, and there’s so much skill and experience needed in order to pick out what is important and convey it in the short time available.
As an informatics major at UT Austin, a major key point in my field that’s been hammered down into us has always been how information and data will always be biased because the people who collect them will always come in with their own biases and different backgrounds. This is the same case when it comes to audio description. It takes a lot of thought to describe something as factual as possible so that those listening can get their own conclusions and opinions from it. During a training session at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired that I got the chance to sit in on, Celia said something that really stood out to me- “they’re not there to hear your voice because you’re not the main attraction”. The idea that audio description for blindness is primarily about access is a constant reminder that audio description is about the important parts which help convey the message of the thing being described. Including opinions, fancy jargon, or extra effects made to “dress the stage” aren’t the main reason, but I think it all lies in the feelings and message that people with sight can understand and how we can translate those same feelings and messages to the blind community.
It feels like a constant balancing act because what is the creator’s message and what are the feelings that you yourself feel and how much of that is influenced by your background? It reminded me of a painting in the Blanton that showed a family sitting around a table. While my classmates were drawn in by the warm tones and the ideas and feelings of a warm, cozy family dinner, I had felt a distinct apprehension due to the sharp, prominent white knife in the middle of the table. In contrast with everyone else, I felt like the painting was a disconnect between family and a sense of unease. If I were to describe that, I would likely focus on the knife instead of the family around the table and if the listener only thinks of the knife as a prominent fixture of the painting, then they might share my views of the painting instead of viewing it as a comforting piece. Art is a subjective experience and when I was younger, I would always love to guess the painting’s meaning before reading about what the author intended to depict and as someone interested in audio description used in a museum setting, I really want to replicate that experience.
Alt Text: Elena, a young asian woman, stands on a high place over looking a city with sunset in the distance.
During the training at TSBVI, we took turns describing an image on a postcard with as little opinion as possible. I tried to replicate what my eyes were drawn to first and to describe it through colors, but someone mentioned that those with total blindness from birth will often associate colors to feelings. Red is fiery, hot, and passion. Blue is cold, icy, and sad. In the next few weeks, when I begin to create my own audio description training program, I really want to incorporate these feelings into my descriptions. How can I utilize the preconceptions and associations that people already have into my descriptions? How can I incorporate my knowledge of the museum into how they view the space and work? But also, how can I withhold my own opinions so that they can draw their own conclusions?
There’s so much more that I want to explore as I continue interning at underneath Art Spark TX and I’m excited how far I can take this and which things I can explore. Celia once told me that you really need a love of what you’re describing to even be able to properly do audio descriptions for it and I think that it’s true. You need to love the work and the craft so that you can put enough energy and thought into it and I hope that this will be evident in my future work.