Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Good vibrations: Blackout Arts' 'vision and vibration' workshops for deaf people (11 May 2005) Picture the scene: rolling fields, blue skies and sunshine, and add to this mix a cacophony of grooves, chilled-out revellers and the pop of a beer can and you get some impression of the Orange Ashton Court Festival. This annual two-day fest is Bristol's largest outdoor music event. Over 30 years old, the festival has its roots in the free party community arts scene and used to be known as the Bristol Community Festival. For the first time, in 2004, I attended the festival. Ambling into the Blackout Arts tent towards the end of the first day I was greeted by a deep, hard and very loud, almost ear-plug material, bass-line. On stage a solo performer was working it, energetically dancing and moving her hands and head intensely, in time to the music. What was going on? Perplexed, with my mates wondering what I'd dragged them into, a quick glance towards the mixing desk and the darting eyes of VJ Rodell, aka Rod McLachlan of Beam Productions, set the mind to rest. Knowing that VJ Rodell was partially involved in running Deaf Rave workshops, I quickly realised that we had stumbled into Blackout's Deaf Rave. Article URL: http://www.nestafuturelab.org/viewpoint/art51.htm Read 122 more articles from NESTA Futurelab sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: SlideShowPro     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy