Altered perceptions: Using immersive sound and image to depict the experience of blindness
Creators: name: Filipovic, Dora
Publisher: name: University of Surrey
Year: 2024

description: <b>Abstract</b><br>
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description: This research explores the connection between sensory perception, artistic expression, and the experience of blindness. The researcher's personal journey, inspired by sound recording processes through undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, led to an appreciation for the meditative qualities of perceiving surroundings through heightened auditory senses. The exploration deepens with an investigation into the perspectives of blind and visually impaired individuals in Serbia, revealing a transformative connection between sound and light in the absence of visual stimuli. Motivated by these insights, the researcher delves into the realm of visually impaired painters, both historical and contemporary, considering the impact of heightened reliance on hearing on their artistic processes.<br>
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description: The research was carried out as part of the Centre for Creative Arts and Technologies (C-CATS) at the University of Surrey, a group of creative practitioners and technologists working within the broad arena of moving image techniques and technologies. In addition to this written thesis, a core component of the research is its creative practice output: a short film written, directed and produced by the researcher featuring ‘immersive’ sound and vision to be experienced through a virtual reality headset. The study depicts the phenomenological experience of living with sight impairment, which involves accentuating attention to the auditory world. More specifically, it explores the effects that blindness can have on painters and ‘visual’ artists; and the extent to which they can call on memories and their perception of sounds in the scene to paint, using imagination and instinct in place of visual observation. A key part of the research involves the acquisition of qualitative and quantitative audience data with respect to various presentations of the film, and through this, we were able to infer empathic and phenomenological findings relating to sight impairment, sense of hearing and overall perception of an audio-visual work.<br>
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description: <b>Return to Impression – The Storyline</b><br>
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description: An artist, Filip, who is losing his sight, is visited by the muse Vera (a female first name of Slavic origin, meaning “Faith”). She is a personified force, a metaphor, and the source of inspiration for the artist. Afraid that Filip will give up painting completely, Vera takes the artist on an inspirational journey to help him paint the scene by listening to the sounds which she experiences. Through the subjective lens of 360 cinematography, and the person-centric interactive experience of fully immersive sound design, the intention is that each audience member experiences Filip’s journey for themselves, whatever their level or lack of visual sensory capability, or indeed their affinity towards enhanced auditory perception. <br>