Three windows described by three voices […]

With Anna Bowen, Catharine Frazee, and Laura Burke

Audio, 17 minutes 43 seconds.  2018.

The full title of this companion piece to Three windows is, Three windows described by three voices. Anna Bowen describes the first, a window with cream-coloured curtains of varied lengths, hanging from a sagging rod, occasionally blowing in the breeze. Catherine Frazee describes the second, a window covered by dense, grey curtains that respond to a gentle wind, the light peeking around the edges alternately growing and diminishing. Laura Burke describes the third, a window with off-white curtains that are at times still and at others billowing out or sucked back against the window screen (either fully or partially), the play and glow of light animating the space

As the title suggests, three writers were invited to each respond to a section of the video by creating an alternative audio description.  Taken together, these compose a non-visual point of entry that that functions as an artwork in itself.  Writer and poet Anna Bowen, writer Catherine Frazee, and spoken-word poet and playwright Laura Burke crafted rich and nuanced works that push the conventions of audio description, mining the imaginative and poetic potential of this act of sensory translation.

The transcript is available here.

This project was commissioned by Tangled Art + Disability for the Human Flourishing Project.  It was exhibited as part of ArtSpin’s project Holding Patterns at Planet Storage in Toronto in the fall of 2018, at TALK BACK (Flux Factory, Queens, NY) in 2018, and at articule as part of Ada X‘s Slow Tech Htmlles Festival in 2020.

Thank you to Michaëlle Sergile for creating a French translation, available in the video captions.

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