Tag: Deaf

Exhibition Simulation of Missed Communication

Exhibition Simulation of Missed Communication

“Unraveling & Integrating 40 years of Missed Communication”

This is a “Simulated Proposal” of a new Exhibition that I would very much like to mount. If you are interested in further information please contact me directly via e-mail – ryan (at) ryanseslow.com

Six (or more) large flat screen video monitors hang both vertically and horizontally to create an integrated and balanced pattern on the wall. The art consists of new static digital collage works, animated gifs and motion graphics that produce a multi-channel series of narratives. The various mediums illustrate the narratives about pretending, hiding and being in denial about my severe hearing loss and deafness over the last 40 years. The works examine various aspects of the title itself: “Unraveling & Integrating 40 Years of Missed Communication”.

The exhibition space will also have 1-2 free standing computers on pedestals for visitors to access and use. The exhibition simultaneously is supported by a desktop and mobile website where the show also functions in fragments with individual stories that explain each piece further. Visitors can interact with the content in both exhibitions by sharing their own stories, leaving comments, creating dialogs and or adding to the art works and joining the exhibition.

*This idea is in development. More coming soon.

Further Reading and Supporting Resources from previously published content can be found by clicking here.

MISSED COMMUNICATION CONTINUED

“The Attempted Recomposition of a Synthetic Auditory Miscommunication” is an Illustration and Animated GIF series of new work examining my identity as a Deaf and Hard of Hearing person. In a previous post two days ago I began a long over due process of sharing and expressing who I have always been. The response has blown me away. The support and compassion has been incredible, and for the first time I felt at home and welcomed into a community I have always been a part of. As we know, the human ego is a tough nut to crack. It is a process, and certainly takes time to realize when oneself is acting from the perspective of it. I did, for 30 plus years! Im really grateful for the response, support and the new friends I am quickly making! I walk a fine line between the hearing world and the non-hearing world. With hearing aids I can synthetically “hear” about 50% -ish of what a person with “normal” hearing, hears. However, this statement does not translate well into noisy environments when and where multiple conversations are going on, the regular sounds of life, cars and planes, construction and sirens. Ooof. When these factors join the conversation, that 50% dwindles down to much less and I become co-dependent on lip reading, facial expressions, body language and my own overcompensated intuitive energy reading abilities. Im thankfully learning ASL now, which is also long overdue. I would say that I have avoided learning ASL for over 30 years because my perception was that if I did, there would be no turning back and I would have to forever face my biggest fear of being of being deaf and hard of hearing in the world. Even though in my heart, I knew that it would become my greatest asset. There is much more to this long story and I will share through my art works and posts here forward.

About the works:

Version 1 – The animated GIF: Animated GIFs are soundless. The GIF file format itself is a soundless entity. This is an objective and specific reason for WHY I create so many GIFs. (you can see more on my profile over at Giphy.com – ryanseslow) With GIFs you are dependent on your vision and visual literacy to follow, connect and interpret the moving image. The background image is an inner ear medical diagram taken from a public domain image resource on the Internet. The public domain represents creative commons fair use access to various types of content that can be re-used, shared and depending on your intention, repurposed for contextual forms of communication. I used the inner ear diagram and altered it to visually look jumbled, manipulated and no longer completely understandable. Perhaps there is just enough information in the image to follow along, but ultimately the image becomes confusing and difficult to fully understand. This is a visual metaphor for the loss and missing of words and sound. Two tired hearing aids appear representing the ongoing exhaustive process of trying to follow words and sounds, make sense of them and direct a response. Often my responses are wrong to questions that I am asked. I have to witness the reactions and perplexed looks of the person or persons also trying to process if they misunderstood my misunderstanding. The hearing aid batteries rise like a mountain. The endless sea of batteries. The #10 battery size. Four per week, 16-18 per month, 220 – ish per year (yes, I drop them easily and cant see them when I do, haha! They are so small) 28-ish years of this process exceeding over 6,000 batteries placed in and out of my skull. (Whoa, never did this calculation before outside of my own head) The constant awareness of “time” as a result of “when that battery will run out of power”. The psychology and physiological effect of this overall awareness itself is a lot of information. This is me. I LOVE every bit of me, but often, I am missing a lot. The GIF is simply one iteration to help express it. 

Version 2 – The static illustration (static image) – The image follows the same description as read above. The exception is in the “concealed identity” of the hearing aids. This represents who I was a short time ago, the years of trying to blend in as a hearing person with the “secret” and “small” hearing aids that I pretended no one could see. I wish I could have taken a photo of each person who over time begins to notice that I wear hearing aids. the reaction on their faces, the moment of perplexed stillness and quick attempt to also pretend they did not notice when we lock eyes. This reaction is my responsibility. It is a direct reflection of the situation itself. This experience has happened hundreds of times, and only once or twice in 30 years did someone actually ask, Ryan, are you deaf or hard of hearing?

Thankfully, this will never have to happen again because SHARING NOW! :)))

With gratitude and openness I am asking myself a lot of questions as this process and body of work evolves. How may I be of service to help bridge the world between those who also have or have had a similar experience? How can I help bridge the gap between the deaf, hard of hearing and hearing world through art and one’s creative potential to do so? How can I apply my experiences to be a positive instrument of deeper understanding and communication?

More to come. Feel free to reach out.

Hard of Hearing and Deaf 

Dear Common Community,

Today begins a journey into a series of new art works revolving around being #hardofhearing and #deaf 

I have lived between both of these realities for my whole life. With out hearing aids I do not hear any sound, with them I can hear about 50% of what a normal person may hear. Though my level of loss is degenerative, and aging plays a role, the next 20 years should be interesting :)) Most of my life has been spent pretending “I was not deaf and hard of hearing”. Too many years have gone by. Its time to take responsibility for this. Share and tell my story and hopefully use it as a tool to connect and help others who also know this space too well. 

This animated #gif has been created to illustrate the endless stop and go like cycle and struggle of trying to hear and overcompensate for the what I am not hearing part. An animated GIF works perfectly to display the infinite loop of daily occurrence. Plus, animated GIFs are soundless. The sleepy eyes of the tired hearing aid reveals its face…It is exhausting and often difficult to manage the emotions that go along with this cycle in real-time. You probably have never noticed this before. I have thought over and over and long and hard about how this series of works should start. Im done with that and jumping in. Images were taken and re-rendered from the public domain. This is a #metaphor – can you understand why I did that? #communication is everything when you are missing more than half of all the sounds in your day to day reality.

Much more to come. Feel free to ask me any questions.