Tori Hannah Walker
Colaborative Practice module.
Concept
With recent coverage and huge funding cuts to the disability funding, Dyslexia has become a very current topic of convocation.
Having Dyslexia and being denied help for it in year 8, I was only formally diagnosed in my late teens and only officially tested in my first year of university.
All universities have rules and ways in which to get help. Which in the way of dyslexia is extremely counter intuitive as to get help to fill out forms you need to fill out forms.
These things aren’t in place to be irritating its just that the people who put them in place are unaware of what issues they are dealing with. I wish to inform people of the issues with dyslexia through experience.
The piece.
This work will utilize eye recognition software to emulate the reading difficulties of dyslexics. The work is an exploration in perception. It will aim to give insight in to the disconnection between the form of written language and the shapes perceived. The work will also explore the diverse way stories can be misread.
The work will consist of a USB with a program (made up of re-written eye tracking software) that will morph and change as the reader attempts to read it. Changing the story and the letters (swapping the Bs and Ds, changing spellings to incorrect or different words) to force the reader to read at the national reading speed average of dyslexics.
This should highlight the issues with reading and create a better understanding for those people working with Dyslexics, raising dyslexic children or even help create real empathy through experience in those who would choose to bully dyslexics.
Plan and timescale.
I have found a programmer who is willing to work on this project for free in his spare time to re-wright the way the eye tracking software affects the page as it is being read.
The location of the project will be a purchasable teaching aid on USB, available to all English speaking nations, as it affects different languages in different ways it would not translate well. Dyslexia seems to affect English so much because of the way our language was formed and formalised, more by a consensus and miss reading /miss pronouncing of words until the convention became the norm.
It will also hopefully be an installation piece, displayed in conjunction with the NDACA national disability arts collection and archive and epic arts.
I have a meeting with a few of the funding bodies on the 29th August.
And the NDACA wants to show it November 12th., so it will need to be finalised and tested before 20th October.
Funding, research and realisation.
Looking at the work by the dyslexia research trust and Patoss. Investigating the vast changes and breakthroughs that have been made in the research, understanding and treatment of dyslexia. Researching exactly how close we are to understanding all of the differences, good and bad that dyslexics have.
I will be hopefully working with the NDACA, the British dyslexia association, Dyslexia action, the dyslexia association. Most of which have funding available to increase understanding, awareness and create more positive perceptions of Dyslexia.
I have already been in touch with director of the Dyslexia Research trust Clarice Davies. She has led me to the third Oxford-Kobe Symposium, which was focused on dyslexia.
I have been in touch with some of the researchers, to offer assistance in research (as I am a rare dyslexic, high functioning with a non high functioning mother and a non Dyslexic father) I have gained some of the minutes from the symposium in which the keynote speakers discuss what they have learnt about the way Dyslexia effects our daily lives.
I have been conversation with other dyslexics from many disciplines, mainly artistic with Fine art, Architecture, Photography and Philosophy. We are working together to determine the way in which Dyslexia affects the way we read, wright and attempt to skim read.
Costings.
The programmer is willing to work for free, the software is £100 for an open licence.
The outlay for USBs caperble of dealing with the size and speed of the program will cost £120 as i need 5 for Dore and one for the NDACA show.
At some point i will have to advertise it but innitially i wish to go for £500 worth of funding. as im sure i have missed some initial outlays.