- Can we conceive sound beyond hearing? What other ways of access to sonic media can we devise when systematically informed by the experience of Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals?
- In what ways can we conceptualize those alternative sensory channels and put them into artistic use, aiming at the inclusion and visibility (or rather, audibility) of a “silent minority”? How can musical and sound-art education help deconstruct this stereotypical, naturalized exclusion from the particular art-fields?
- What do we learn through art-making?
Within B-Air: Art Infinity Radio, TWIXTlab’s core contribution is entitled “Audibility”, and is concerned with the relation of sound art and music with the experience of deaf and hard of hearing individuals. The project consists of a program of creative encounters between sound artists and/or musicians with deaf and hard of hearing students and their educators. Initially those meetings -workshops and presentations- are addressed to Special Schools for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing in Athens, Greece, with a prospect to also conduct workshops outside the school setting. Those meetings shape an educational and creative research framework, where invited artists, educators and students work together for the creation of an artwork (or more) each semester. These works can be accessed in the links: [1] [2][3][4]
In our research, we are systematically informed by the works of contemporary Deaf and hard of hearing artists that thematize deafness; the fields of Deaf studies, anthropology, and art; the history and theory of art, particularly in regards to the relation of artistic genres and forms (i.e. music and paining, graphical scores, etc.); and technological applications that accommodate sensory translation. Next to this theoretical background, the research also unravels in the field, through participant observation within the workshops, that constantly provides feedback for our methodological approaches, seeking to contribute to the existing literature on the aforementioned scientific/humanities fields.
Ultimately, given B-Air’s focus on the radio, we look into the potential of the radio, as a medium and as a concept, to transform with the help of digital technology, in order to provide more accessible multimedia content, bringing together audiences within its warm, affective, entertaining, and informative character.
COLOPHON
Since September 2021 TWIXTlab has been working with the Special High-School for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing of Argyroupolis, Athens, Greece.
Invited artists
Tatiana Remoundou (Visual artist, born in Athens, Greece, 1978. Tatiana studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts, and graphic design at the School of Art and Graphic Design of the Technical Education Institute (TEI) of Athens, and also attended as an Erasmus student in the Politecnica des Bellas Artes, Valencia, Spain. Over the years she has been involved in several artistic projects, and she is currently working as a teacher in special education. She is deaf and speaks the Greek language fluently, while she also signs fluently in the Greek Sign Language).
Lambros Pigounis (sound artist/composer/musician) lives in Athens, Greece, and specialises in the field of contemporary classical and electroacoustic composition. He studied violin and theory of music at the Greek Conservatoire in Athens, and electroacoustic composition at the University of Hertfordshire (UK). His main artistic activities are Sound Art works and physical sound art performances as well as collaborations with musicians, directors and choreographers. His recent works include the Micropolitics of Noise, A Long Durational Sound Art Performance commissioned by the Marina Abramovic Institute and NEON, as well as commissions by the HAU Hebbel am Ufer Theater in Berlin, Rimini Protokoll and others, for theatre, dance and film. He is currently researching the ethics and politics of sound in acoustic ecology through the input of the human agent in electroacoustic performance based on interactive compositional models. [artist's website]
Scientific collaborators
Scientific advisor: Panayotis Panopoulos (Assistant Professor of Anthropology of Music and Dance in the Department of Social Anthropology and History, University of the Aegean, Greece. His research involves music, voice, sound, hearing and performance, it relation to locality, the Deaf experience, sensory ethnography, as well as interactions between anthropology and contemporary art. He has collaborated with several artists, artistic and educational institutions, in the context of the ethnographic turn in contemporary art (documenta14, the Venice Biennale, Encounters project, etc.). The subtitle "Deaf / Sound / "Art" is borrowed by his influential art-and-anthropology papers, accessed here (in Greek), with a reviewed version of it here.
Education Coordinator, field researcher: Dana Papachristou (Music/musicology, art education, new media aesthetic theory, adjunct lecturer of Transcultural History and Theory of Art in the Department of Culture, Creative Media and Industries, University of Thessaly, Greece).
Community Liaison: Ourania Anastasiadou (Visual artist, curator, educator, Special Education Staff of the Athens School of Fine Arts). Ourania is an ASFA graduate in painting, and a holder of pre-doctorate degree entitled Advanced Master in Education: Deafness, from Gallaudet University. She is the founder and head of the Deaprtment of Accessible Education in the Athens School of Fine Arts.
Project coordination, field researcher: Yorgos Samantas (member of TWIXTlab, MA Visual Anthropology, Ethnographic Documentary with Sensory Media, University of Manchester, UK. Over the past ten years, Yorgos has been working in the field between social anthropology, art, and education, on projects about the environment, mental health, inclusive radio, walking and the city, and art institutions, among others).
With the additional financial support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.
