Audio Points of Contact
In 2022, Kurziv and Pogon developed a collaborative programme aimed at bringing contemporary culture and art closer to a wider audience through the versatile interpretive possibilities of audio formats.
The primary target groups of the project “Audio Points of Contact – An Experience of the Process” are blind and visually impaired and young people. The programme consists of the exchange phase (consultation meetings for the adaptation of the content to persons with visual impairments, listening parties and exhibition tours), the construction phase (spatial sound workshops and a series of audio tours) and the transfer phase (investment in the accessibility of the content). Through free creation and sharing of innovative, educational, informative and entertaining content, interpretation and development of audio formats has the potential to become a means for a more intensive involvement of individuals, but also wider communities, in the reception of and participation in cultural production.
As part of the programme, consultations on web accessibility were conducted on the example of Pogon and Kulturpunkt websites. Antonio Pavlović, a blind person and an expert in the field of audio description and adaptation of cultural content to people with disabilities, advised the attending organization managers and designers on the basic steps of adapting web pages and online communication to blind and visually impaired people.
Consultations on creating and hosting listening parties, workshops and audio tours were conducted in the Small Hall of Pogon Jedinstvo. Direct work with people with disabilities must be designed and organised with the members of the group in order to avoid stereotypical patterns of behaviour that could lead to perpetuating exclusion practices despite positive intentions. In addition to the members of the programme's core team, the consultations with Antonio Pavlović were also attended by the associate in discursive activities, Davorka Begović. On the same day, consultations on the accessibility of the premises of Pogon Jedinstvo were organized.
The experimental sound listening party on 26 May in the Small Hall of Pogon Jedinstvo was led by Davorka Begović. The listening party focused on critical listening as an important approach in the digital age due to changes from analogue to digital sound. Raising awareness about the layers of audio works contributes to the understanding of the production and artistic perspective of audio and visual projects. Begović also led the Spatial Sound Workshop in the Small Hall on 7 June. The workshop focused on listening to the sound environment by introducing participants to field recording. It included joint listening, conversation, soundwalk or walking and listening to the Sava embankment - its sound environment and an attempt to create a sound embankment in the Small Hall of Pogon Jedinstvo.
As part of this programme, from May to December 2022, audio tours were recorded and published for various programmes held in Pogon.
