Are you as aware of “how” you communicate with your fellow human beings as you think you are? Do you give your full attention in all of the exchanges and interactions that you have? How aware are you when you assert yourself? Covering your mouth while talking again perhaps? Are you taking communication for granted? How do you know if you are? Perhaps its time to take a look and make a few changes. This new and continued series of animations and digital illustrations are metaphors that express the communication frustrations that I experience. I am sure that my fellow Deaf and hard of hearing people also relate to these pieces and experiences. Of course this spectrum varies greatly from person to person. What is it like to be in a perpetual state of straining and juggling the comprehension of verbal and auditory communication in public spaces? Along with the poor and oblivious communication behaviors of people? Well, its an ongoing everyday experience full of adventures.. It is also really exhausting, and after 40 plus years of daily repetition the energy has to be freed. Im using this concept in my art and writing and building a body of work for an exhibition here in NYC in 2019.

C O M M U N I C A T I O N

Communication drastically differs from space to space and place to place for everyone. For those that wear hearing aids you know all too well what I mean. Every public space is challenging. Feedback, amplification, distortion and more distortion.. It is much easier to not wear hearing aids at all and this is the right of each individual. Thankfully I can remove mine at will and as I get older and lose more of the ability to wear hearing aids period, I meditating on the understanding of it all. Multiple amplified competing sounds turn into a “mish mosh” of incomprehensible distortion for me, trying to understand another human being or multiple human beings who are trying to speak to me in a situation like this translates to this visual images above and below…a solution for me is to “eject” the batteries, and convert the synthetic distortion to soundless vibrations. Some situations work better than others for this. I have learned that it is my responsibility to help teach my hearing friends, family, colleagues and fellow human beings what I need from them to communicate in various situations. By doing this I activate their awareness and hopefully propel them into taking further action. (LOL, most don’t though) The repetition of this has helped a little with the people I see most, but the other everyday occurrences are works in ongoing progress. I love teaching and learning new things, and communication is our birthright..we need to really absorb that, not just for oneself but how this effects others. I have been thinking a lot about this statement and have never felt better about it than by learning ASL. There is much more to come.