[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] TTT, photography, Seeing-Beyond Sight Challenge

Tue May 29 04:29:23 CDT 2007

Hi,
A few links. Recommend the radio program about photography and book 
Seeing-Beyond Sight and challenge
real medium 
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R705111000?itemMD5=8b01411b9d22eeb5aed0282dffa384fb
Mp3 
http://kqed02.streamguys.us/anon.kqed/radio/forum/2007/05/2007-05-11b-forum.mp3
very interesting question and answer section

Also photography from India and Turkey
Best,
Lisa

May 08, 2007
Seeing Beyond Sight -- Blindfolded
Participants in the Seeing Beyond Salon, in San Francisco, May 17, 2007, 
will be taking photos blindfolded, with their pictures uploaded live to 
the Web. The event celebrates a new book by Tony Deifell , "Seeing 
Beyond Sight: Photography By Blind Teenagers" from Chronicle Books. The 
salon at Minna Gallery is called "an evening of social networking, 
creativity and big-picture thinking." Deifell is a visual artist , 
teacher and social entrepreneur who creates youth-generated media 
projects. He will be on hand, along with Reba Drew & Merlett Lowrey, two 
of the book's blind photographers. The picture-taking salon event is 
presented by SFO, a "Collaborative Production Game" with these goals: 
"meeting new people, exploring the city, and participating in 
non-consumer leisure activities."
http://www.communityarts.net/apinews/archivefiles/2007/05/seeing_beyond_s.php
RNC and TTT
http://www.rncb.ac.uk/t3/index.html
blog
http://theblindblogger.blogspot.com/2007/05/bfreedom-tactile-graphics-and.html
tactile graphics and T3

The subject of tactile graphics won’t go away. Over the years many 
gifted people have bent their minds and enthusiasms in the cause of 
creating meaningful raised maps and diagrammatic representations for 
those of us who can’t see. I come from a family of three visually 
impaired lads. I find tactile diagrams a struggle, almost an extra 
barrier to the learning, but my two brothers just love maps and diagrams 
and would, I am sure, be thrilled with the current developments taking 
place at the Royal National College here in the UK. I saw the device for 
myself while in Germany this week; but let the college promotion team 
sell the idea to you themselves: Maybe we have something to learn from 
this presentation.

Page Headline: T3 from RNC
T3 Talking Tactile Technology

"The beginning of a complete revolution in accessibility for the 
visually impaired"
"One of the most important inventions for blind people in the last century"
"Sensational"
"It has blown my mind"
"The potential is enormous"
Introducing the T3...
... A Whole New Way of Seeing
... A Whole New World of Learning
T3 - A touch sensitive, multi sensory device which provides instant 
audio feedback from tactile images. This combination of sound and touch 
transforms the way in which people who are visually impaired can access 
graphical information.
Operation is simplicity itself. The T3 is connected to a standard PC or 
laptop computer via a USB connection and the self-installing programme 
CD is inserted. To activate the system all that is needed is a T3 
tactile diagram overlay to be placed on the surface of the device and 
touched by the operators finger.
Depending on the CD programme content, the operator now has access to a 
huge volume of information on any pre-selected subject. When a user 
presses on various parts of the tactile diagram they hear appropriate 
descriptive audio feedback.
T3 is successfully being used across a range of sectors including:
Education - from Early Years to Adult Training...
Public sector
Libraries, Arts and Museums
Industry and Commerce
This is what T3 users have to say about it...
"The beginning of a complete revolution in accessibility for the 
visually impaired"
"Sensational, it allows the person to access written resources with 
senses other than vision i.e. by touch and sound"
"At last, a piece of equipment that puts the user in charge"
"One of the most important inventions for blind people in the last century"
"If only it had of been around years ago - learning would have been so 
much easier"
"It has blown my mind... the potential is enormous, unimaginable really"
"So easy to use, intuitive and straight forward"
The T3 is brought to you by the Royal National College for the Blind, 
the UK's leading college of further education and training for people 
who are blind or partially sighted, a Beacon college and described by 
Ofsted as "Outstanding".
The T3 is the European version of the Talking Tactile Tablet (TTT) owned 
by Touch Graphics, New York. Initial development work was undertaken 
with support from Anglia Ruskin University.
Photo of Student using T3.
RNC are the leading creators of tactiles for the T3.
Complete T3 kit, hardware, software and tactiles.
RNCB 2005 The cost is £600.

Now for my view: A lot of work is required to prepare materials. But 
it’s a great invention and the T3 will stimulate many imaginations. For 
more information, go to http://www.rncb.ac.uk/t3/index.html.

article
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/May272007/finearts200705263864.asp
Light in the dark

Not many know that photographs can be taken by the blind. Partho 
Bhowmick, the mentoring force behind the exhibition Beyond Sight recalls 
his enthusiasm for photography of the blind to Niloshree Biswas.

In an article on Evgen Bavcar, one of the most well-known blind 
photographers of the world, Benjamin Meyer poses a few questions. Why 
would a blind man want to wear transparent eyeglasses? Why would he wish 
to walk the streets of Paris dressed in the same black hat, cape and red 
scarf worn by Aristide Bruant as depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec? Why would 
he want to risk speaking on a radio programme about paintings which he 
has never actually seen? And why would he desire to take photographs?
Evgen Bavcar (E-oo-gen Ba-oo-char), is an art photographer and he is 
completely blind. Born in 1946 in a small Slovenian town near Venice, he 
lost both eyes before he was 12 in two consecutive accidents. Four years 
later, he laid his hands on a camera for the first time, to take a 
snapshot of the girl with whom he was in love.
He defines the cumulative reaction as the following, “the pleasure I 
felt then resulted from my having robbed and fixed on a film something 
that did not belong to me, I secretly discovered I could possess 
something that I could not see.”
That photographs can be taken by the blind is a known phenomenon in 
India? Largely no. Lest Evgen’s name would have featured 
somewhere...expressed Partho Bhowmick, the mentoring force behind the 
exhibition ‘Beyond Sight’ which was held in Mumbai recently, as he 
recalled his early stint of photographic enthusiasm and how he connected 
himself to photography of the blind worldwide.
Bhowmick was transferred to Mumbai in 1999. “What was just a 
professional base change slowly became a part of emotional existence, 
Bombay started gripping me. I visited Photographic Society of India, 
slowly started being parts of the photography circle
till one day got a 
call from my regular book vendor who informed that there’s this new book 
which I should check.”
The deal never happened; instead Partho Bhowmick laid his hands on an 
old issue of ‘Times Journal of Photography’ that carried a story on 
Bacvar. Reflections was Partho’s area of interests. But photography by 
the blind that’s too farsighted an area

“I had my FM2, I had even exhibited my photographs of reflection but 
this was phenomenal. I was intrigued, deeply interested to know more 
about this kind of photography.”
That was the beginning of a long phase of newer understanding. Bhowmick 
got connected to Bacvar and a host of other blind photographers to learn 
about the process of photographs taken by them.
Photography by visually impaired meant learning afresh about blindness. 
Bhowmick found a support from Aperture Foundation, New York, who already 
had supported a project called ‘Shooting the Blind’. This was the 
turning point.
The desire to work with blindness was getting intense and Partho 
Bhowmick was on the lookout for prospective students. Finally, after 
several rounds around institutions that dealt with visually impaired, 
Victoria Memorial School of Blind agreed to the idea. Mahesh Umrannia 
became the first student. Slowly the number increased.
Thereafter with several layers of blindness in a mix group of students 
aged 10-50, Bhowmick concentrated in helping his students build the 
“mental image.”
The result is a 28 photograph exhibition that travels across the country 
with next stop in Bangalore (Chitrakala Parishath in June) followed by 
Kolkata and Delhi.
Large frames mounted on the wall talk about new possibilities. 
Subjectively photographed, some of them delve into narratives of the 
imagery; honestly most of them are synesthesia that technically would 
mean perception of sensory data of one sense with another
.as in hearing 
colours.The photographers have tried to generate the photographs from 
their understanding of the warmth, colour, touch, feel of their 
immediate surrounding.
Bavcar’s work addresses the relations between vision, blindness and 
invisibility, “my task is the reunion of the visible and the invisible 
worlds, photography allows me to pervert the established method of 
perception amongst those who see and those who don’t. It is simple, my 
hands measure the distance and the rest is achieved by the desire for 
images that inhabits me.”
In a beautifully taken photograph of the shadow of a tree, Mahesh, the 
photographer confesses, “I would manage to touch the lower branches of 
the trees and feel of the summer sun over my head and imagined the 
designer shadow on the footpath before clicking. Photography connects me 
to the visual world.”
Various levels of belonging to the visual world bind the photographs be 
it the self-portrait of Raju Singh or the corridor of Rahul Shirsat — it 
is the sense of belonging that percolates.
Most of the photographs act as a deep acceptance of the tangible reality 
unseen to the eyes that have created them.
Thus a range and possibility of a new genre of aesthetics has been woven 
as one mesmerisingly looks into the photographs of the eight 
photographers whose eyes had been metamorphosed to viewfinders of their 
newly found power tool — The camera.

link
http://imagearchive.psu.edu/thumbnails.php?album=410
pictures for
Touch tour helps visually impaired appreciate 'Giselle'

radio program

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R705111000?itemMD5=8b01411b9d22eeb5aed0282dffa384fb
The program discusses the recent book "Seeing Beyond Sight," which 
challenges our perceptions of what it means to "see." The book showcases 
photography created by visually impaired youth.
article

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=109807
Visually impaired photographer works to open exhibit
A visually impaired student in the central Anatolian city of Sivas is 
preparing to open an exhibit of his photographs.

Selman Deveciog(lu, who is trying to get his exhibit open in time for 
Disabled Week (May 10-16), has his photographs currently on display at 
the Beyazay Association for the Visually Impaired. Fond of taking 
photographs, Deveciog(lu said he needs support for his exhibit, which 
explores Sivas from the standpoint of the visually impaired.
Deveciog(lu, a history student at Sivas Cumhuriyet University, has a 
love of taking photographs that is exemplary even for those who have no 
disability. Twenty-one-year-old Deveciog(lu, who has been 98 percent 
blind from birth, is most interested in taking pictures of historic 
buildings, nature and pictures of people. "I cannot see but I press on 
the shutter release by feeling it. Later, I receive feedback from my 
friends about the photographs I take," said Deveciog(lu, whose camera is 
his most valuable possession. While he sometimes gets help from his 
friends while taking photos, Deveciog(lu said he gets positive reactions 
from those around him. Deveciog(lu's love of taking photos started at a 
very early age, and he received no special training for this.

His biggest dream was to open a photo exhibit. He has taken steps to 
accomplish this by displaying his photos at the Beyazay Association for 
the Visually Impaired, of which he is a member.

Asking for help from the Governor's Office and the municipality, 
Deveciog(lu said he needs an exhibition place and nearly YTL 500 to 
print his photos. He said he takes photographs and shows that disabled 
people can also achieve what they want.

"I have never heard of a visually impaired person taking photos. I think 
I will be the first in Turkey," he commented. Deveciog(lu said he also 
writes children's poems and received an award in this field. Beyazay 
Association Chairman Tuncay Köse said they steer their visually impaired 
members to fields that require hands-on work such as drawing and sculpture.

In case he finds a sponsor, Deveciog(lu will open an exhibition with 50 
of his photographs. The exhibit will be open during Disabled Week, May 
10-16.