Text as Medium for Aural Communication: An Aural Diversity Workshop with Jay Afrisando

Image description: A black-and-white image of two hands pinching a balloon. A caption on the bottom reads, “[ge-BE-o hih! herr he-h-h-h-h h-h-h-h h-(h-)h-h (h)(h)(h..) herrrr-eagh!” A still from Jay Afrisando’s In Which to Trust? (2022) featuring captions by Josephine Dickinson.

Perhaps more than we realise, text can become a functional and creative medium for aural communication, whether in captions, expressions in stories, or daily human conversations. In crip practices, text has gradually become a placeholder for conveying and symbolizing sonic thinking, in addition to visual thinking, by and for persons having various sensory conditions. Therefore, text can pave the way for accessible—and even cross-sensory—sound communication and ideas that live in the minds of the listeners individually and collectively.

This workshop invites neurodivergent, Deaf, blind, and ‘normal’ hearing listeners, as well as people with chronic illnesses and other aurally diverse people, to celebrate aural communication through text. Hosted by Jay Afrisando, this workshop is open to participants with all artistic and professional backgrounds, including artists, art curators, writers, patrons, gardeners, (home)cooks, scientists, students, teenagers, stay-at-home parents, etc. In short, everybody.

In this workshop, all participants equally come as experts in their own hearing-listening. The facilitator and the participants will explore listening, practice composing text as sonic communication, and learn from—and hopefully be surprised by—each other.

Accessibility

The workshop will be held in spoken English. However, this workshop is open to English speakers, German speakers, and German sign language (DGS) users. The workshop will allow the participants to learn and explore how captioning can be influenced by the language we are using. Therefore, German text and signs can be expressed in their own ways and will also be interpreted in English. DGS, English real-time captioning, and German interpretation will be provided. Accessibility information for the NM1 venue can be found on our access page.

About the facilitator

Jay Afrisando is a composer, multimedia artist, and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, currently a 2024 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellow. A neurodivergent, he works on aural diversity, disability, accessibility, and decolonizing arts, manifested in music-theater, film, installation, witty storytelling, and other genre-bending experiences.

The workshop will take place on Thursday, 13th of February from 17:30 - 19:30 at our workshop and event space in Niemetzstraße 1, 12055 Berlin. Please sign up using the form below.