[Artbeyondsightmuseums] crowd sourcing

Thu Aug 29 09:50:21 UTC 2013

Hi,

Have included one article that is a bit off topic but I liked it so 
thought you might too. It's about a voice over artist.
Otherwise, one article about a crowdsourcing app that is really neat and 
one about braille street art.

Regards,

Lisa

MySmartEye app crowdsources vision for people who are visually 
impairedAn app called MySmartEye is crowdsourcing sight for the visually 
impaired and YOU can help.

The app connects visually impaired users with volunteers who use their 
sight to help the user connect with the environment around them.

The users of MySmartEye follow voice commands and double tap their 
smartphone to take a photo. The picture is then sent to a volunteer in 
real time. The volunteers are alerted to the picture by a simple 
notification and then describe what they see by typing information in a 
text message-type box.

That text is then read back to that visually impaired user.

http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/mysmarteye-app-crowdsources-vision-for-people-who-are-visually-impaired

http://www.zdnet.com/sg/crowdsourcing-app-mysmarteye-helps-visually-impaired-see-7000019883/

http://mysmarteye.starhub.com/

MySmartEye (www.starhub.com/mysmarteye) is an award-winning 
crowdsourcing application that engages volunteers, family and friends to 
assist the visually impaired to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li3A3HY2vlw

*A visually impaired RAF veteran has presented a painting commemorating 
Andy Murray's Wimbledon victory to the Scot's grandparents.*

Shirley and Roy Erskine, grandparents of tennis legend Andy Murray, were 
handed the painting, titled 'Andy Murray Serving an Ace at Wimbledon' 
from 93-year-old Scottish War Blinded member Dorothy Wheatley.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/arts/visual-arts/blind-artist-paints-andy-murray-wimbledon-picture-1-3063361

Austin Seraphin, 36, lugs his Braille writer down the stairs of his 
Bella Vista apartment and sets the typewriter-like contraption on a 
table. The machine's bell softly rings from the impact. His friend Sonia 
Petruse, 27, says she has a sticker for him, and he grabs at the air in 
the general direction of her voice until his fingers pinch the Priority 
Mail label. He rolls it into the writer and types, creating raised dots 
the size of pinheads, barely visible to the eye. Seraphin hands the 
now-bumpy sticker back to Petruse for her part of this dual effort: 
writing down the bumps' translation in the standard sighted alphabet. 
Like watching invisible ink reveal itself, a message emerges letter by 
letter as she writes: "Buy silver. Crash J.P. Morgan!"

Jackie O sunglasses perched on her blond head, Petruse scribbles 
"Braille street art" at the bottom of the sticker, along with some 
arrows, dots and x's, then tosses it into a pile of others bearing 
messages like "Aaron Swartz died for you" and "Protect Snowden" 
glimmering in metallic Sharpie. Petruse, a painter, installation artist 
and social-media manager, will take these stickers with her as she tours 
galleries for First Friday later that day, slapping them up wherever 
there's space --- on newspaper honor boxes, street lamps, signs. She'll 
place them low enough that anyone, blind or sighted, can run his or her 
hands over the message.

The duo started making Braille street art, as they call it, in March. 
Since then, they've put up roughly 60 embossed stickers around town. 
Recently, Petruse and the legally blind Seraphin, who can see some light 
and color but not much else, were jointly nominated for Philadelphia 
Geek Awards' Visual Artist of the Year, the winner of which will be 
announced this Saturday at a red-carpet event at the Academy of Natural 
Sciences.

http://www.citypaper.net/article.php?What-s-Braille-street-art-166

      Braille Street Art

Legally blind local programmer Austin Seraphin created Braille street 
art with Sonia Petruse back in March, previewing the project during the 
#NotAtSXSW party in the Drink Philly offices. Each and every sticker is 
created on Austin's Braille writer, with messages written in both 
Braille and print and placed around Philadelphia by Petruse. Due to the 
unique circumstances and the nature of their work, the duo behind 
Braille street art have been nominated as a team.

A unique, beautiful project, the Braille stickers appeared on newspaper 
boxes and other locations around Philly. Learn more about Austin's work 
championing accessibility here 
<http://blog.austinseraphin.com/2013/03/13/braille-street-art/>

http://www.phillygeekawards.com/award-category/visual-artist-of-the-year/

Recently, I began chatting with an artist friend of mine 
<http://twitter.com/thecatears>. We met when Indy Hall did their 
Jellyweek event <http://behindthecurtain.us/page/2/> at National 
Mechanics. She enjoys doing street art, creating bumper stickers and 
pasting them on public newspaper boxes. I immediately felt attracted to 
the subversive nature of the art. It didn't take us long to realize that 
I could put one of these stickers into a good old fashioned Perkins 
brailler <http://www.perkins.org/store/braillers/> and create braille 
street art.

I would like to think we have done something novel, but not entirely. I 
found an article <http://drawn.ca/archive/tag/street-art/page/2/> about 
a project in Portland, Oregon. In this case, the message says: "You 
don't need to be blind to see that the writing is on the wall." 
Excellent! I've also seen sculptures with braille plaques on them, and 
they do have a blind garden somewhere around here. Still I can't escape 
the feeling that we have done something special.

We just made these stickers in a few minutes as a totally grass roots 
operation. ..... By the way, that bastion of truth Wikipedia 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_art> defines street art as 
"specifically visual art." Not anymore!

http://blog.austinseraphin.com/2013/03/13/braille-street-art/

      Blind artist Bruce Horak draws his audience in

        During each performance of his new Fringe play, Bruce Horak
        creates a painting of the audience. Then at the end he sells it
        to the highest bidder.

During each performance of his new Fringe play, Bruce Horak creates a 
painting of the audience. Then at the end he sells it to the highest bidder.

Don't expect Robert Bateman-style realism, however. Horak, 39, who lives 
with just nine per cent vision, is legally blind.

His show, opening Tuesday at the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival, is 
Assassinating Thomson. Over 75 minutes, Horak paints, talks about 
painter Tom Thomson (who some believe was murdered) and chats about his 
own life.

A painter as well as an actor/playwright, Horak first became intrigued 
with Thomson after seeing his iconic painting, Jack Pine --- a haunting 
image of a lone tree at sunset.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/blind-artist-bruce-horak-draws-his-audience-in-1.599743

Blindness Didn't Keep Voice Over Artist From Success

http://digital.vpr.net/post/blindness-didnt-keep-voice-over-artist-success

See how voice over artist Pete gustin has overcome being legally blind 
to make a career for himself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5_2TGdWk5U

<http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/mysmarteye-app-crowdsources-vision-for-people-who-are-visually-impaired#ixzz2dLRofx8q> 