I did not think a lot before deciding to start off by talking about audio description (AD); a translation domain that I studied for two years as part of my MA courses and one of the fields that I found most interesting.
Art and media products have become an essential part of our daily life, whether for entertainment or educational purposes. One of the ways to allow the blind and partially sighted audiences to experience these products is audio description (AD). AD might still not be a well-known practice to the public or even among translators. As the term suggests, AD is a verbal description of a visual content to provide the blind with access to it. It can be applied to many art products like paintings and sculptures and media products like films, TV shows, football matches and more. AD falls under the umbrella of audio visual translation (AVT), which also includes subtitling, subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing and dubbing.
Remember the bedtime stories our mothers and grandmothers used to tell us? How vivid they were, rich in visual details, that some mental images we created then might still be as alive as they were inside our heads. This is a spontaneous raw example of audio description. Other practices that share similarities with AD are the commentary on theatrical performances in the radio and commentary on football matches.
When I was first introduced to AD, it seemed very uninteresting to me and I would have never imagined choosing it as a topic for my thesis. I was thinking it is reducing a work of art rich in details, colors and layers to words, regardless of how detailed we can get, it is still a kind of reduction in the negative sense of the word. But that was only until my internship in the Picasso-Giacometti exhibition in May 2017 in Fire Station Doha. This internship was an opportunity to practically apply what I have theoretically learned. Under the supervision of Professor Josélia Neves and in collaboration with my colleagues in the Translation and Interpreting Institute, I spent a full day around the exhibition with a group of blind visitors to make their tour more accessible. The day started with a workshop in the second floor where we shared a live description of sculptures made by Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. Then visitors were given some tools to create their own sculptures. Later, we moved to the hall downstairs to present a description of the paintings. At that point, seeing the reactions on their faces and their body language showing how interested they are, I started to believe in what I am doing.
Horse Head, 1951 – Alberto Giacometti
At the end of the day, we all gathered for an open discussion about the experience and the feedback from blind visitors was more assuring. They were satisfied and expressed their desire for more of this and how, unfortunately, rare it is. I came to realize that it seems to work, it makes sense for its audience, and that is what matters. AD empowers the blind to see the work of art by creating a visual representation of it in their minds. In this sense, on the contrary of what I previously thought, it does not devalue but transcends the work of art by transforming it from the visual to the verbal so that this group of people can have access to it.
From the perspective of a sighted audience, maybe the verbal description will not do justice to a painting, yet, this does not apply to the world of the blind. AD is their way to experience art and be part of this experience.
During the workshop
That was a brief introduction to audio description. Stay tuned as I will be sharing more experiences from actual work I have done.
TranslARTation 