A convex, minutely puckered surface could be called a vertical sea*
What else can I describe to help create a more complete picture?1
There are approximately 11 seconds of silence before her voice begins, a silence that is loud and grainy when the volume is maxed out on my laptop—punctuated with a few disembodied clicks and what I imagine to be a slow intake of the speaker’s breath. Then, that particular unfolding, wet sound of a mouth as it prepares for speech: “a convex, minutely puckered surface could be called a vertical sea,” she says. Throughout her sentence she leaves small beats after certain words—convex, surface, could be called—pauses for emphasis and an additional breath.
The title for Aislinn Thomas’s video is pulled from Guelph-based poet, Georgina Kleege discusses the standardized frameworks for composing audio descriptions: to maintain as much objectivity as possible, avoiding personal interpretation, speaking in a flatly pleasant tone. As she explains, audio descriptions are texts that are typically left unauthored, compounding the assumption that they are neutral parcels of data to be accessed by those who need them: “if the describer simply chooses the correct words, an image will be transmitted directly to the blind person’s mind’s eye where she can form an independent, aesthetic judgement about it.” As a blind person herself, Kleege adds, “I am not sure if I have a mind’s eye, or if I do, its vision is impaired precisely to the same degree as my physical eyes.”
