A new exhibition exploring the decline of Braille opens this Friday (26 July) at the University of Abertay Dundee’s Hannah Maclure Centre art gallery. Double Blind Test Series is an exhibition of print works highlighting the artistic research by David Lyons, Abertay lecturer and researcher. The series was conceived as a visual investigation of sensually expressive printmaking.
As Braille is a communication tool in decline, Lyons believes that the increasing abandonment of Braille opens it to exploration and experimentation, and that this may result in Braille becoming a dynamic form of expression for the sighted – with exhibition visitors experiencing Braille through sight and not touch.
David Lyons, lecturer and researcher in Abertay University’s Institute for Arts, Media and Computer Games, said: “With this series of prints I travelled from a narrow interest in Braille to a much broader interest in vision and visions, layering Braille elements, literary texts and the Ishihara Colour Blind test. “It is my hope that they communicate engaging sensory experiences to people of varied sighted abilities.”
Lyons produced 12 prints that use visual elements from various sources. The layouts and colours are influenced by the Ishihara Colour Blind Test plates and his readings on colour blindness. Selections of text from William Blake, Aldous Huxley and Tom Wolfe are used as visual texture.
Whereas Braille messages are hidden from the sighted, numbers and patterns are hidden from the colour blind. The prints can therefore be experienced differently depending on one’s perception. Lyons’s series of prints are visually and tactically expressive, engaging the blind, the colour blind, partially sighted and the sighted.
The exhibition, Double Blind Test Series, is free and open to the public in Abertay University’s Hannah Maclure Centre, on the top floor of the Student Centre on Bell Street.
The exhibition runs Monday to Friday, 10am-5pm, from July 29 to August 9.