More than words can say is an interactive, telephone booth-like installation that is a cross-pollination between art, communication, accessible design, and technology.

The synthesizer and a collection of paired tactile artworks that serve as prompts are located within the installation where the hidden translator inside communicates through sound and vibration to the audience outside, composing a multi-sensory language. The “translator” is the active interpreter of the tactile prompts, while the passive “listener” receives what is being communicated, imagining the forms of the tactile artworks that inspired the message. Both active and passive participants are essential for acknowledging one’s thoughts through encoded messages, emphasizing the need to pay attention to the other’s expression carefully, and to listen with an open, creative mind, especially towards marginalized voices with communication barriers. By using a mode of communication which is somewhat abstracted from traditional linguistic methods, the piece also examines how the mind deciphers meaning from unexpected multi-sensory patterns. I’m especially interested in learning from blind and Deaf audiences in order to observe the way their interpretation of abstraction differs from sighted and hearing audiences.

More than words can say acknowledges that there are unique ways of communicating, beyond words or visual mediums, and imagines possibilities of a universal language that includes a wider audience.

 

 

This multi-sensory project is the product of the Haptic Horizons residency in fall 2024 and Sync Re-Ignite residency in fall 2025, and was generously supported by the Region of Waterloo arts funding.