Tag: surfacing

More Touch Experimentation at the OAG

Posted on by Corey Timpson

This is the 2nd tactile art piece we’ve seen at the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) (see April 8 2020 for the previous piece we experienced there). Unlike the previous, this research project is based on an original artwork – Group of Seven member, Franklin Carmichael’s 1928 “In the Nickel Belt” oil painting. This work is interpretively reproduced as a rubber and wood tactile image with an adjacent iPad surfacing descriptions and sound effects. There is a substantial disconnect between navigating the iPad and the tactile image, going back and forth, which would certainly be a barrier to autonomous exploration for blind users, and the iPad was not set to access mode, meaning sight was required for on-screen orientation and navigation. Yet the interesting point for us with this work, is the dividing up of the paintings various landscape elements, the tactile patterning, and material selections and uses. We’d have more than a few notes for consideration within this experiment to render it more inclusively accessible, but we love that the OAG keeps on exploring various ways of making 2D artwork accessible to a wider audience.

Wide view of the installation has the label in English and French to our left. The iPad, mounted off the wall at an angle is located directly to the label's right, and the tactile painting is to its right.
Installation view of the labels (English, Français), iPad, and tactile artwork.
A landscape oil painting of dark colours low in saturation depicts an undulating ground which comprises the bottom half of the painting. Rising through the centre of the work is a plume of light grey smoke or clouds, meeting the top of the painting that consists of more grey clouds set against a pale grey sky.
Carmichael’s 1928 In the Nickel Belt oil painting.
A text label that reads: This project is the results of a collaboration between a researcher, Dr. Patricia Bérubé, and 6 participants from the low-vision and blind community taking on the roles of co-translators and co-curators. Using a participatory and co-design approach, the participants co-developed a multi-sensory translation of Frankly Carmichael's work, In the Nickel Belt. Visitors are invited to experience this augmented version of the painting by exploring the tactile component with their hands as well as he audio component on the iPad. Leaving your finger on a specific Zone will play a related sound, while double tapping on one part will provide a one or two-word description of what is being touched.
Installation label.
This tactile representation of a landscape painting in a plain, gold painted, wooden frame, is made of green, blue, and white rubber and pale wooden raised lines. The wooden lines provide outlines to the landscape, isolating the ground or mountains from the sky, and the clouds. Green rubber is patterned like repeating upside down Vs is used to note the ground, blue rubber in circular patterns is used for the sky, blue rubber lines are used for another part of the sky, and white rubber in a sort-of hounds tooth pattern is used for the clouds or smoke, located centrally in the image, above the ground and below and in the middle of the sky.
Tactile version of the Carmichael’s painting.

Tactile QR Code: Bourbon Edition

Posted on by Corey Timpson

We have been using QR codes in some of our work as a simple way of surfacing access affordances, like visual descriptions of artwork within exhibition and gallery spaces. The final hurdle always remains ensuring the QR code is discernible through multiple modalities – not just visual. Making QR codes tactile is one of the tactics that can help contribute to their findability and usability (lining up the camera with the code). In many cases it has meant printing them with thermoform, 3D printing them, adding stickers to the printed codes, applying the printed code to a container or surface that is tactile, and various other methods. In this case, at The Manhattan Project in Louisville, Kentucky, they were so pleased with using QR codes for their menus during the pandemic, they embedded laser etched versions into their bar top. The bar manager was very happy to discuss the fabrication techniques with us. They were even more pleased to learn that in surfacing their menu in this way (digital on mobile via QR) they have made their menu accessible to many people who would otherwise have faced an access barrier. Digital presented on mobile allows for screen reading, pinching and zooming, color swapping, and more. The high contrast between fore and background helps visual discernibility, and the square itself is tactily distinguishable from the counter.

A light coloured wooden square is inset into a darker coloured wooden barton. The inset contains the letters TMP, followed by the words "The Manhattan Project", followed by a QR code. All 3 pieces of content are etched or laser cut into the surface of the wood and the deep groves are darker in colour providing a high contrast distinction against the un-etched surface. The etching is at a depth that facilitates tactile consumption of the content.
Tactile QR code seen at TMP in Louisville, Kentucky.