A convex, minutely puckered surface could be called a vertical sea […]

Video (4m 29s), with experimental audio description by Anna Bowen. 2018-2020.

A video still from A convex, minutely puckered surface could be called a vertical sea […] Image Description: Caption text that reads “and in this movement of clear thin cloud plastic.” Most of the image is a mottled blue with bright white cloud-like shape along the top edge. To the right is a glimpse of blurry brown background (a table, some books, a seashell).

The full title of this piece is A convex, minutely puckered surface could be called a vertical sea: Anna Bowen describes an abstract video—a close-up of a blue foam roller with a piece of acetate moving in front of it crinkling loudly and reflecting white and, at times, iridescent light. In it, Guelph, Ontario-based poet Anna Bowen offers a generous description that unfolds over the four and a half minute duration as the video does: slowly, in tender circles and eddies.

A convex, minutely puckered surface could be called a vertical sea […] follows my exploration of experimental approaches to audio description. Informed by chronic illness and disability, it is also part of a body of work that seeks to reclaim domestic space as a site of imagination and possibility, especially when it is not where a person would prefer to spend their time.

A convex, minutely puckered surface could be called a vertical sea […] was featured as an Artist Project in C Magazine (Issue 147, GATHER), with an accompanying text by Daniella Sanader, a Toronto-based reader and writer. You can experience the video and text here.