Design Journal Phd Report - Rev B. Sent to Chris Lim DJCAD for comment
Exploring Animation & Virtual-Reality
to Represent the
Perceptual-Experiences of
Art-Practitioners with Sight-loss.
Andrea McSwan _ PhD REPORT DRAFT_REV B
– DESIGN JOURNAL
Overview
Whilst the
sighted generally imagine people with blindness as living in a world of
darkness, only a small percentage of people have total vision-loss and many visually-impaired
persons have some perception of light, form, movement and shape . As mental images can be generated without
sight, the ability to see is not necessary for the
creation of visual art.
This practice-based PhD project explores animation and virtual reality
to represent the
creative practice of artists with sight-loss. Using virtual-worlds to enable sighted users
to understand another person’s perceptual-experiences, this inductive research
adopts an interpretive approach and incorporates the strength of case-study to
compare abstract concepts of blindness to actual lived experiences.
The
methodology will apply qualitative techniques, to understand the methods artists, with sight-loss, use and how visual impairment shapes
their practice. Responses will be evaluated, by analysing the data, to create
an immersive animation, viewed and
experienced in virtual reality.
Keywords
Virtual-Reality,
Animation, Visual Impairment, Blindness, Perceptual Representation, Sensory
Introduction
Whilst the
sighted generally imagine the blind enclosed in a black world (Barasch 2001;
Borges 1980) only a small percentage of people have total
vision-loss many visually impaired persons have some perception of light and
shadow (European Blind
Union 2019). As mental images can be generated in all
sensory modalities (Eardley and
Pring 2006; 2014) visual experience is not necessary for an
abstract representation of an object (Ravenscroft
2019; Ricciardi et al. 2009).
This research project aims to represent the creative methods of
art-practitioners with sight-loss, using the cinematic practice of animation
and virtual reality. Animation has the ability
to create a cinematic experience only available to the spectator through
techniques available in animation filmmaking (Buchan et al. 2006), it can be argued that, when combined with virtual reality,
animation can provide users with
vivid sensory experience, enabling them to embody another person’s perceptual
experiences (Ahn et al. 2013).
Qualitative semi-structured interviews
were conducted in the creative environments of three visually impaired
professional artists, to capture, through their descriptive storytelling, a
holistic understanding of their perceptions and methods of practice. The
collective prize-winning visual art of these three case-studies, covers an
international field of practice including exhibitions at the Tate Modern, 3D
live drawing installations at London’s South Bank, panoramic ink drawings of
zen gardens in Japan, bronze pouring and casting of singing bowls in Burma,
transparent voile drawings of
city-scapes, jewel-like studies of
light and super-scale sculptures of braille.
Context & Literature
Globally, it is estimated that approximately 2.2 billion people live with
some form of vision impairment (National Federation of the Blind 2019; RNIB 2019; WHO
2019a), 39 million of
those being classified blind. (ICD-11 2018) and the remaining 85% of people with eye
disorders have some remaining sight (WHO 2019b).
Eye disease adds new challenges to the task of creating art and historically impaired vision altered or
ended the work of many painters including Monet, Degas and Turner (Duffy 2019;
Gruener 2015; Liebreich 1872; Marmor 2014). In terms of understanding narrative in the
paradoxical pairing of blindness and visual arts, Georgina Kleege argues that
the metaphorical depictions of blind artists are not only intriguing but can
extend into narratives (Kleege 2018) and that visual artists
develop habits of mind which enable them to retain mental images better than
the average person (Kleege 1999).
Studies in visual
perception have shown how the visual word form area can be activated instantly
with a single word (Sacks, 2010). In terms of
artistic visual perception of the blind, raised pictures, for tactile
exploration, have been devised for over 200 years with educators and
philosophers arguing that these haptic images would require explanation to the
blind (Kennedy
et al., 2000). However,
experiments have shown that the blind can sense these haptic images, through
touch, to recreate visual metaphors and drawings. (Kennedy,
2008) including
representations of perspective (Kennedy et
al., 2006). Kennedy’s research
questioned whether devices created by the blind, to depict motion, could
communicate effectively to the sighted. Presenting pictures of wheels drawn by
a congenitally blind man to 24 adults students studying perception, his
drawings depicted circles to represent static wheels and distorted elliptical
wheels with criss-crossed movement lines, to suggest wheels in motion. The
findings showed that the drawings conveyed their intention at a rate
considerably above chance (Kennedy,
2008). Conversely, when
exploring whether the tactile-kinaesthetic channel provided enough information
to represent the human form in clay, congenitally blind children created
disproportionate models of the human body, emphasising fingers, hands and heads
that were the focus of their attention, suggesting that in the formation of an
internalised representation of the human body, tactile-kinaesthetic information
cannot fully compensate for visual experience (Kinsbourne
and Lempert, 1980).
However, Kennedy argues
that blind individuals have innate pictorial abilities and there is a
usefulness of encouraging blind persons to experience the artwork of others and
to create their own devices, representations and drawings as well (Kennedy,
1983).
Similarly,
the Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET) experimental research of
AhnLe and Bailenson (2013) explored whether embodied experiences (EE) via IVET
would elicit greater self-merging and helping toward persons with colour-blindness,
compared with traditional perspective taking which relies on the imagination to
put the self in another person’s shoes. AhnLe and Bailenson concluded that EE
was effective for participants with less empathetic tendencies, confirmed a heightened
sense of realism and finally that participants would voluntarily spend twice as
much effort to help persons with colour-blindness, compared to participants who
had only imagined being colour-blind (Ahn et al. 2013).
Approach
How do art practitioners with blindness
and sight-loss imagine and dream? How do they comprehend transparency,
reflectivity or color? How does their visual impairment inform their artwork
and methods of practice?
This inductive research aims to explore animated virtual worlds to
enable sighted users to understand the perceptual experiences of artists with
sight-loss. Adopting an interpretive approach this practice-based PhD project
Incorporates the strength of case-study to compare abstract concepts of
blindness to actual lived experiences (Neuman, 2014).
The objectives include establishment of a literature, context and
practice review relating to visual impairment in the field of the visual arts.
The application of qualitative methods, including individual semi-structured
interviews, narrative-enquiry (Clandinin, 2000) and case-study to capture the subjective voice and
experience of art-practitioners with
visual impairment (Neuman 2014) to understand what informs blind
art-practice, the creative methods artists with sight-loss use and how their
creative environment shapes their practice. Themes and
responses will be evaluated by analysing the data gathered to inform and create
an immersive animation, viewed and
experienced in virtual reality. The final film output will incorporate
documentary sound tracks underpinned and informed by case-study and narrative
enquiry and will be showcased and evaluated at a participatory public
engagement event.
Methodology
This PhD research will will ask How can animation, viewed in virtual
reality, represent the perceptual-experiences
of art-practitioners with sight-loss and promote awareness of blind art-practice? How does sight-loss inform the artwork and methods of practice for artists with
visual impairment? In what ways can 3D animation,
combined with virtual reality, be used to replicate abstract
interpretations of blindness and provide a new film language for artists with
sight-loss?
In his
studies of psychological, philosophical and social theoretical epistemologies
of blindness, Hayhoe (2016) states that the epistemological approach needs to
be holistic and inform accurate definitions of blindness to develop a social
and scientific understanding of blindness.
The research
methods of this practice-based project aim to gain understandings and insights
into the imagination and perceptions of art-practitioners with sight-loss and
will include narrative enquiry as a method to make meaning of experience (Clandinin
2000), generating knowledge and shaping experience,
rather than simply recounting events (Bleakley 2005).
Qualitative
semi-structured interviews were conducted in the creative environments of three
visually impaired professional artists, to allow empirical enquiry and
investigation in a real-life context (Schell
1992; Yin 2014) to capture, through their descriptive storytelling, a
holistic understanding of their perceptions and methods of practice. The
collective prize-winning visual art of these three case-studies, covers an
international field of practice including exhibitions at the Tate Modern, 3D
live drawing installations at London’s South Bank, panoramic ink drawings of
zen gardens in Japan, bronze pouring and casting of singing bowls in Burma,
transparent voile drawings of city-scapes, jewel-like studies of light and
super-scale sculptures of braille.
Tentative
findings at this early stage indicate commonalities between the artists in
their experience of sight-loss, with colour palette changes of violet hues
fading first and the actual process of losing sight involving vivid photo
realistic hallucinations, kaleidoscope technicolour patterning and glittering
patches of light, resembling static white noise. Through recall of memories and
previous experiences, both imagination and dreams are in full colour and
pictures.
The
comprehension of spatial environments, both in terms of scale and nature may be
informed through the focus of listening to external and internal activity
including cars, trains, building works, people, rain and wind. When
transitioning through environments, a new space may also be identified by
temperature. Almost meditative in approach, the art of listening, as a focused
activity is also used to identify the species of trees by the sound of the
leaves when agitated by breeze. To determine recognition of people, gait and
movement were acknowledged as primary indicators to gauge mood, personality and
demeanour.
The data
will be analysed and the
findings of these interviews will inform the animated artistic world of the
artists, represented in virtual reality. The interviews and interpretive
analysis aim to identify narratives that tell an intellectually and emotionally
compelling story, on the basis of transparent evidence (Gioia et al. 2013) whilst preserving the integrity of the raw
data (Langley 1999).
To further
understand the experience of sight-loss, secondary data will be generated at a
public engagement event for sighted and non-sighted participants at the
University of Dundee, facilitated by the RNIB. This secondary data will be
obtained through qualitative questionnaires , a Dine in the Dark taster experience
which will be framed to include visual and verbal presentations; a
participatory workshop, a Q&A plenary panel, reactions, recordings,
discussions, summaries and critiques (Sullivan 2010) will be woven into the research thesis.
Next steps and Public Engagement
How
others, in this case art-practitioners with sight-loss explore and make sense
of the world, the values that guide them and how to see the world through their
eyes is a crucial purpose of this project’s public engagement. Consultation and
establishing a dialogue are fundamental ways to realise this (NCCPE, 2019) and a
public engagement event, fully recorded and photographed, aim to be delivered as
a methodological approach to provide a platform for obtaining data.
During the
scoping of this project a number of academic researchers and organisations in
Scotland and England, expert in the field of blindness and visual arts, were
identified and approached for future public engagement opportunities.
The
purpose of interweaving public engagement throughout the research process is
driven by three factors, responding, sharing and learning, as outlined by the
National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement. Raising aspiration and sharing research
benefits including learning, new insights and inspiration, through Public
Engagement is a mutually beneficial process for the both the researcher and
public audiences (NCCPE 2019).
This
practice-based research exploring 3D animation and Virtual-Reality is
positioned within the cinematic visual arts, which increasingly comes to gain
familiarity with interactive technology and tools from computer science (Mitchell et al. 2016) and will culminate in a fully interactive
animated Virtual-Reality experience. Suited to have the potential for many
purposes, the final VR animated practice-output will be trialled at a public
engagement event. The final year of
research will include a day symposium, to road-test the final prototype,
disseminate knowledge and the research findings.
Acknowledgements
Andrea
McSwan began her PhD at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD)
In
September 2018. She is supervised by Phillip Vaughan, Fraser Bruce and Dr
Caroline Erolin.
Disclosure Statement
No
potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Biography
Andrea McSwan is a PhD researcher with a background in film
set design, 3D animation and visual effects. She is currently undertaking a PhD
to explore animation in virtual reality to represent the perceptual experiences
of blind art practitioners. Her research interests lie in animation, visual
effects, virtual-reality and film.
Address for Correspondence
Andrea McSwan Postgraduate researcher Animation & Virtual Reality, DJCAD,
University of Dundee, Dundee, UK. Email:
aemcswan@dundee.ac.uk ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3858-8714
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