Captioning Art

I’m all about universal accessibility. I get a real jolt when I can break down barriers between people and information. But a colleague asked me a question today that has me perplexed.

How do I caption a work of art that is a video? If I caption a video installation, am I changing the work of art? Does seeing a caption at the bottom of the video affect the intent and desire of the original artist of that video?

How can I provide the captioning and audio description to people who want/need it while still maintaining the integrity of the work of art?

I want to know what you think? Don’t be shy!

8 comments

  1. Glenda,

    I hear ya. Doing the captions for Realmdanceproject.org, that was in my head, too. The dancers didn’t mind the idea, though, as to them, it was a way to bring their art to more people.

    However, I can certainly respect an artist wanting to preserve their interpretation of *is* their art. There probably is no one right answer, but there should be one right procedure: make some sort of accomodation. Each instance will probably be different. This artist wants nothing altering the work, this one doesn’t mind the work presented as part of a smil, this one wants a transcript file linked off the same page as the video.

    Do you use Magpie for your captions?

  2. Hi Patrick, yeah…this is a tricky question…but I think you are right…we need to make some accomodation…and the amazing Jim Allan just told me about the Rear Window Captioning System:

    The patented Rear Window® Captioning System displays reversed captions on a light-emitting diode (LED) text display which is mounted in the rear of a theater. Deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons use transparent acrylic panels attached to their seats to reflect the captions so that they appear superimposed on the movie screen. The reflective panels are portable and adjustable, enabling the caption user to sit anywhere in the theater. The Rear Window System was co-developed by WGBH and Rufus Butler Seder of Boston, Mass.

    How super cool is that? (and yes…I do use Magpie for captioning :-)

  3. How can I provide the captioning and audio description to people who want/need it while still maintaining the integrity of the work of art?

    You use closed captioning or description. Have people turn it on or off as required.

  4. Joe…agreed…if I’m serving the video via the web. But I’m actually asking about an in gallery experience (which I didn’t make clear)…where the video is projected on the wall. While we could go with a “double feature”…one video playing without the captioning and one playing with the captioning, I was looking for a more elegant solution.

  5. How about handouts available in the room? You could ask the artist if they wanted to write the captions and other information in the handout, and then everyone could have that extra bit of information available.

    For audio descriptions, you could provide headsets with audio descriptions for anyone who wants them. Again, you could ask the artist to provide the description as well as any extra work.

    They could be art in their own right…

  7. I’ve seen several museums where the video normally displays without captions, but there’s a button nearby the exhibit that can be pressed to enable them.

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