PROJECTS

PROJECT FIVE: STRANGE CONTINUITIES

Kindly supported by Research at Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon (University of the Arts London), Spazju Kreattiv in Malta invited me to conduct a two-week residency working with the local Maltese blind community. I worked collaboratively with theatre/performance practitioners and academics including students on the BA Applied Theatre and Performance course at the University of Malta and their leader, lecturer and theatre practitioner Tyrone Grima. I set up a series of practical workshops known as explorations held across three days that developed multisensory pedagogies predicated upon sound, drawing  and listening to explore three concerns: (1) the practice of looking; (2) what it may mean to go from the visual to the auditory and (3) how to translate the visual to sound/touch. 

https://www.kreattivita.org/en/artists-residency/lee-campbell/

DAY THIRTEEN: PUBLIC PRESENTATION

DAY TWELVE: EXPLORATION THREE

DAY TEN: EXPLORATION TWO 

DAY NINE: INVITED LECTURE AT UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

Today I was invited by Joseph Stafrace to give a lecture on my vision impairment research to his students (Learning Support Educators) at the University of Malta. 

DAY FOUR: EXPLORATION ONE 

Instructions to groups from me (an enactment and extension of an activity previously led by Gemma Shaw) : 

1)  Divide into pairs

2)  One person in the group needs to be visually impaired in 

     some way 

3) The visually impaired partner please sits on a seat, the 

     other partner please come to the  table where you will find 

     some objects 

4) Choose a voice recorder – check you understand how to 

    work it! 

5) Take a card from the pile with a shape on 

6) Decide what tape you want to use to instruct your partner 

     to use to draw that shape with 

7) Record your instruction for the drawing of the shape and  

    the material to be used into the voice recorder 

8) Go back to your partner sat in the chair and hand the voice 

    recording to your partner.

9)  Partner listens to the voice recording, seeks out material

10) Draw through instruction onto the floor/ wall 

Anne-Marie and Joseph 

Jessica and Maria 

Tyrone and Aidan

DAY THREE: WRITING / REFLECTION 

I undertook some writing and reflection / preparation for forthcoming activities particularly in terms of the 'Alternative Musical Instruments' activity day the following week where I am asking participants to bring un unusual objects to make sounds with rather than using predefined musical instruments. 

I thought back to a studio visit that I had last week at Conditions with artist Harun Morrison who introduced me to the work of German contemporary theatre maker Eva Meyer-Keller, and particularly her performance, Sounds like Catastrophes (2013) which she developed with primary school children. In radio, the term foley refers to creating soundscapes from everyday materials; you have someone with a range of everyday objects (foley) and they make the sound of steps of someone going up stairs using fruit, for example. In Meyer Keller's performance, the children are asked to name what they think would the worst catastrophes (ice-caps melting etc.) and then use sounds and microphones to create these (catastrophic) situations. You are watching it live unlike on radio - you are now seeing bodies create sounds which are not meant to be seen.


I will share these ideas with the group when we first meet tomorrow and remind them to start gathering bring un unusual objects to make sounds with.

DAY TWO: MEETING WITH ANNE-MARIE CALLUS, MARINELLA TOMASELLO AND JOSEPH STAFRACE 

Today, I was joined by academics from the Disability department at University of Malta, lecturer Anne-Marie Callus and visiting PhD student Marinella Tomasello, as well as Joseph Stafrace, Chairperson, Malta Guide Dogs Foundation He is totally blind and currently learning to live without his recently retired guide dog. Today was the first time he had travelled without his guide dog – he made it; Valetta is not easy! As with Tyrone and his students yesterday, I explained the context and motivations behind the residency and the overriding You Don’t Need Eyes to See You Need Vison research project and discussed the activity plan. At the end of the session, Marinella said that although she is excited about the residency, she is also a little nervous about the ‘gap’ in language in terms of translating English into her native Italian and I am sure the same is for those in the group whose mother tongue is Maltese – though Anne Marie suggested this gap will make things more interesting. All three in the group seemed happy to take part not knowing exactly what was going to happen and when – a certain degree of anticipation and taking a leap of faith. This made me think about the ideas of Performance scholar Dwight Conquergood (2002) who describes Performance as a way of knowing. One comment that struck me in this session (in a very pleasant way) was made by Anne-Marie in terms of me pushing the boundaries of what I think is possible. She suggested that rather than me thinking that I cannot do something with a particular [visually impaired] person, I asked myself what I can do to make that something possible. After the session and a light informal lunch, myself and Joseph went for a coffee in the middle of the bustling Valletta city. This was the first time that I had assisted a visually impaired person in this way, learning to always keep to his left and to try to foresee obstacles on our journey. I am very grateful for Joseph then inviting me to present a guest lecture to a group of Learning Support Educators at the University of Malta next Monday

DAY ONE: MEETING WITH TYRONE GRIMA AND STUDENTS 

Today I met Tyrone Grima, and 4 students from BA Theatre Studies (Applied Theatre) at the University of Malta who have agreed to take part in the residency. We introduced ourselves to one another and this helped to find commonalities / levels of experience of being with people who are visually impaired / aspirations for the residency etc. 

At the start of our discussions, I showed the group an image on screen and Tyrone reminded us that showing any kind of visual image sets up a power relation between those with vision and those without/impaired vision. Amongst the then discussion, it was important to emphasise the fact that the residency prioritises he importance of co-working /collaborative working - in a bid to diffuse power relations amongst those sighted and those with sight loss/who are blind. We spoke about the potential difficulty in terms of the dynamics in terms of having a higher ratio of sighted persons present than those visually impaired. We discussed the possibility of developing activities around the practice of looking further in the week. We also spoke about the problems of language - how description is so subjective (I gave the example given by BBC audio describer Louise Fryer in my previous Open Lab residency of the bistable illusion) - this led us to think about going from the visual to the auditory and the question 'how do I translate that [the visual] to sound/touch?' 

At the end of the discussion, we spoke about improvisation and flexibility in terms of using resources when working on community based arts projects and that it was a slight shame this this residency was not taking place in a laboratory so we can see developments grow organically (we are only in a space for a short period of time any one day and then have to vacate leaving no trace).

ARRIVAL IN MALTA FOR START OF SIXTEEN DAY RESIDENCY AT SPAZJU KREATTIV

Prior commencement of the residency, I met up with current PhD candidate Marinella Tomassello who is spending a period of current research at the University of Malta. Over lunch, she gave me a brief overview on her fascinating project exploring aspects of  Disability Studies and Visual Culture and introduced me to David Bolt's term 'ophtalmocentrism' a new one on me so thanks Marinella!

There is deliberately no sound to this small section of the performance that I have been working on: LIGHT AS VIOLENCE. A silent horror movie - almost photophobia (fear of light). I am interested in light as disruption not solution - a parasitical relationship is produced - on the one hand I need light to read on the other hand it can blind me. Towards the end of the performance, I am almost blinded and the situation becomes extremely uncomfortable. 

OPEN LAB RESIDENCY/ THE BRADY ARTS CENTRE/ LONDON/ 29.09.17-01.09.17

My research residency at The Brady Arts Centre in Whitechapel, developed through the Open Lab scheme at Barbican Guildhall, combining invited speaker presentations, practical experiments and reflective discussions on the topic of vision impairment underpinned by these two key questions: 

1) What could a cross-modal arts manifesto for blind/visually impaired persons look like/ feel like? 
2) How can acts exploring visual negation be used to generate public pedagogy and what may it bring to the experience of removal of sight? 


(click on an image to enlarge/scroll through as a slide show) 

Participants: 
Lee Campbell, Simon Hayhoe, Adrian Lee, Louise Fryer
Nathan Geering, Alexander Costello, Atul Jaiswal,
Vassilios Argyropoulos, Charikleia Kanari, 
Paraskevas Thymakis, Sheri Beth Wells-Jensen, 
David Johnson,  Sristi K.C, Sandra Bouguerch, 
Carali McCall, Gemma Shaw, Matthew Cock
John Thomas, Rosy Maureen McKenzie, Fran Healands
Thomas Jancis, Simon Lyshon, and Polly the guide dog

 

SIGHT (UN)SPECIFIC/ METAL CHALKWELL/ SOUTHEND-ON-SEA
/ 22.10.16  

New works by Lee Campbell, Rory Flynn, Adrian Lee and Carali McCall + artist discussion chaired by Veronique Chance

http://www.metalculture.com/event/sight-unspecific-chalkwell-hall/

This event extended Campbell’s recent event You Don’t Need Eyes To See, You Need Vision in London anded add to the rich contextual history of artworks made by artists and performers who challenge aspects of visuality within their practice. For example, Artur Zmijewski’s work Blindly at Tate Modern, London in 2014 explored what it means to imagine and represent without relying on the sense of sight. In Sight (Un)Specific, Lee Campbell, Rory Flynn, Adrian Lee and Carali McCall extended existing practices and produce creative responses that make positive usage of visual deprivation as a means to think more deeply about how we perceive the operations of certain concepts in the world. Furthermore, this quartet attempted to test the viewer’s understanding of how we may theorise, articulate and demonstrate what may be classed as a dominance of visuality over other senses (Jay, 1993; Crary, 2000) and provoke discussion as to what it might mean to live in a society, which Martin Jay has described as ‘occularcentric’ or ‘dominated’ by vision (1993:3). Works made as part of this event were then reflected upon and disseminated during a conference paper entitled SIGHT (UN)SPECIFIC – An analysis of the event ‘You Don’t Need Eyes To See, You Need Vision’ in relation to Performance, documentation, memory and sight  that Campbell, Lee and McCall gave as part of The Future of the Document: documenting performance, Interdisciplinary Symposium: Monday 31st October 2016, at City, University of London. 
https://documentingperformance.com/symposia/docperform/programme/lee-campbell/

YOU DON'T NEED EYES TO SEE, YOU NEED VISION/ THE QUEENS HEAD/ LONDON/ 03.08.16

New works by Lee Campbell, Adrian Lee and Carali McCall with artist discussion chaired by Aaron McPeake. 

This event contributed to an area of contemporary art practice relating to how practitioners have not only made works that go beyond pure visual sensation but are wholly dedicated to non-visual aspects, often prioritising the haptic, orality, sound elements and other sensory components (Coles, 1984; Marks, 2002; Paterson, 2007). Practitioners, such as artists Artur Zmijewski and Robert Morris have deployed acts exploring visual negation and blindness to inform their work’s content and reception.