“The Sound Exists Only in Your Own Body”—Sensory Approximation of Visual and Aural Impairment through Media Art Projects

Abstract

This article is about art practice that aims at researching and recreating the condition of living with a particular sensory disability, and this through an interactive installation. The two artists whose work I investigate research the visual and aural experiences of themselves and others and attempt to recreate those experiences using computer-generated images and sounds: it is a process of sensory approximation. The audience interacting with these art installations, created in this process, are meant to experience—if for a moment—the condition of living with tinnitus and amblyopia, conditions that considerably affect one’s sensorium. These multimodal attempts at transforming a person’s bodily condition and sensorium into an intersubjective experience resonate with the methodological and epistemic concerns of sensory anthropology.