Realizing the Image 

By Svala Vagnsdatter Andersen, MA Visual Culture

When Kristina Steinbock sets the stage, the boundaries between fact and poetry are blurred and dissolved. Rather, Steinbock works with establishing broad, overlapping interfaces between theatricality and identity, between individuals and categories and between documentation and fiction. There, in the middle, where everything remains uncertain and undecided, she plays out scenarios that, precisely because they are set in a borderland, can accommodate different forms of authenticity and documentation.

In terms of method, Steinbock takes an anthropological ap- proach to the realm of art, using field research to collect factual information about environments and the people she portrays. Steinbock consistently uses amateur actors, but these actors possess a different kind of professionalism: they have a lifelong familiarity with the role they have been assigned. Her fascination with the idea of ‘real’ human beings intensifies the relationship between performer, director, and thematic presentation. Similarly, the mental and psychological preparatory work that goes into getting to know and recognize the amateur actors’ individual masks and personal narratives increase the gravitas of the films. In addition, it makes the works balance defiantly between what may be described as broader categories and individual cases. This methodical and thematic balancing act constitutes a steady reminder of our affiliation with that which is categorical and idiosyncratic. 
Steinbock gives a voice to authentically involved individuals who get in front of the camera and express themselves over the microphone. Especially blind people share what it is like to live 
without their eyesight in a world full of images – and of images of what it means to be blind. Her work focuses not only on the properties of the blind body and its alternative mode of being in the world, but also on sighted people’s ideas about blindness which manifest themselves in language and culture. This gives Steinbock’s works a documentarist quality in that they imply a deconstructivist cultural critique, yet also seem to introduce the docu-art genre as a hybrid form of expression: the documentarist traits are emphasized by an aesthetical, sculptural and performance-based approach.

As a genre, docu-art deals with reality as a true co-creator whose story deserves to be told on its own terms. As we have already seen, Steinbock maintains a vigilant anthropological eye, never afraid of being affected by the stories, of being too involved or getting her hands dirty in the field. At the same time, however, docu-art constantly insists on its status as art, accentuating its artistic and documentary aspects through double exposure. First of all, it does so by not only pointing to an outside reality but by positing that reality in the midst of the aesthetic context, asking provoking questions such as whether we are still quite sure of what is real. Secondly, it uses artistic and aesthetic devices to increase our understanding of documentary representation, honing our senses and our awareness by making us uncertain as to which interpretative approach we ought to rely on – the one we usually apply to art or the one we use to read documentary and biographical material.

Gently bearing in mind the notion of blindness, and with an almost palpable, phenomenological approach to unfathomable 
invisibility, Steinbock’s works decenter vision in favor of a more tactile aesthetics. At the same time, a pervasive sense of light and color makes the works visually artistic, insisting that this is a work of art. Thus, these are works that subtly intend to inspire debates, and which address an audience of sighted people, who are invited to acknowledge the privilege of sight through beautiful visual stimuli. There is so much we do not understand, so much we do not see – because we are not blind. Steinbock’s works open our eyes to new perceptions and create new notions through visually aesthetical enjoyment.

By constantly challenging the integrity of the film medium, artistic methods and of our expectations regarding genre make Steinbock’s works potent contributions to the evolution of con- temporary art film, opening new windows on alternative ways of viewing the ever complex relationship between art and the world.

The visual sensuousness of film is challenged by the endeavor to document pleasurable senses other than that of sight, causing the film to navigate a powerful paradox: how does one overturn centuries of visual dominance through the one medium most strongly associated with sight? Underpinned by this energetic premise, the films unfold subtle reflections on the always-charged encounter between gaze, language, phenomenology, and inter- personal encounters.

The inclusive deconstruction

One of the most important factors in culturally bound conceptions of blindness which most of us tend to ascribe to is that of language. Through language, we categorize the world in order to navigate in it, and we ascribe meaning to phenomena. The body and language are closely connected, and abstract notions such as knowledge, faith, and perception are often tied to bodily and sensuous aspects because they render abstract notions more tangible. The bodily metaphors we live by on an everyday basis have consolidated themselves as invisible structures of language, and they tend to be based on hierarchical scaffolds that prioritize a universal, whole, capable and ungendered body. Art exposes us to that which we take for granted in our everyday interaction with
idiomatic expressions, colloquialisms, and expectations of other people. The works are based on categorical understandings that have become second nature to us, and at times they do this by literally repeating our categorical understandings, saying them back to us, and thus letting the works surprise us as by challenging our expectations. The deconstruction of representations and understandings thus cooccur on a factual level and on a conceptual level that essentially takes a social constructivist approach. The works present, challenge, subvert and aestheticize ideas of blind people’s being in the world, and repeatedly includes the sighted viewer. It is never just a matter of informing disinterested members of an audience. The audience is constantly included in the work itself.

Blind phenomenology and visual media

By Piet Devos, PhD in Modern Romance Literature

Like every disability or reality people fear, blindness has from times immemorial been burdened with prejudices, clichés and stereotypical imagery. In our Western society where since Antiquity vision has equaled knowledge and faith, blindness was tantamount to the pitiful darkness of ignorance. In the Bible, for instance, the blind’s main function was to symbolize unbelief. In general, the loss of a person’s eyesight was considered to be the worst imaginable fate or the punishment for hidden sins, even if, such a miserable life in the dark was compensated by an exceptional talent. This is what we may learn, for example, from the tragic myth of Tiresias who was blinded after peeping at Athena in her bath, but to whom the merciful goddess also granted the ability to see the future. Hopefully, poor Tiresias found some comfort when he thus foresaw that, thousands of years later, new generations of blind people would stand up and speak for ourselves, as to finally contradict all the nonsense that has been projected onto us. Perhaps, Tiresias would have been even more pleased when leafing through the present catalogue of Kristina Steinbock’s artwork, which demonstrates that a visual artist too can make a great effort to put all preconceived notions aside and engage with blindness as a truly lived experience.

Indeed, much has changed since the days of Ancient Greek seers and the blind beggars from Scripture. Having gone blind at the age of five in the late 1980s, I was among the first group of visually impaired youngsters in Belgium who got the opportunity to go to a regular school. Around the same period, similar programs to stimulate the social integration of the blind were being set up in most parts of Europe, Canada and the United States. As a consequence, our active participation in social life has notably increased over the last decades. A crucial impetus for this development also came from new technologies such as computers equipped with braille displays, magnifying software and speech synthesizers, which ensured that we could equally partake of the digital revolution.

However, in spite of a positive trend towards inclusion, the dream of a society where bodily and mental diversity is broadly accepted is far from realized yet. Blind and partially sighted people still frequently run up against practical barriers, discriminatory regulations and – the most fundamental problem of all - walls of incomprehension. Many of us will recognize the painful encounter which Søren, one of the blind participants in Steinbock’s video piece ‘The Space before Sleep’, had with a lady in a bus who asked him: ‘Isn’t it awful to be blind?’ And as Søren sadly comments: ‘I do understand her feelings, but it is quite violent to be attacked like that, especially if you have a bad day.’ Yes, we understand this lady’s anxiety, as she basically reiterates the old, deeply ingrained prejudices regarding blindness. True, in the twenty-first century, most people won’t interpret blindness anymore as a divine punishment, but to the ill-informed sightlessness still represents the horrifying nightmare of total isolation and loss of control.

This is because modern citizens, so deeply obsessed with individual autonomy and productivity, are being haunted by their own, self-created chimaera of bodily perfection. Put differently, most people tend to conceive of their body (and mind) as an adjustable tool, which should allow them to become successful and productive members of society. Accordingly, their body always has to be fit, healthy, attractive and completely functional, so whenever the darn thing fails – and it does fail all the time! - They pin all their hopes on medicine, cosmetics, diets or assistive aids to fix it. It is quite logical then that disabilities or chronic illnesses exemplify the worst-case scenario of permanent failure and dependence on others. ‘Don’t you wish doctors will be able to restore your eyesight one day?’ is another most revealing question strangers would often ask me. It should not come as a surprise in view of the predominant belief in the body’s malleability. But I always have to disappoint them and say: ‘No, not at all! Because I don’t see my blindness as the medical problem it appears to be for you.’

Because, for blind people like Søren and me, blindness is just a part of whom we are. It colors our daily activities and the spaces we inhabit, just as any other aspect of our identity constantly does – e.g. our gender, sexual orientation, cultural or social background. Blindness is a mode of being, an alternative way of perceiving and interacting with the world. Yet, how to disclose our experiences to others?

At first, it may seem almost impossible for a sighted person to enter a life-world that is so different, but as a writer I have always strongly believed in the power of art as an intersubjective mediator. All the works included in this catalogue, which all arose from Steinbock’s close collaboration with blind people, will serve as eloquent examples of what I mean. Because these installations, audio plays and video pieces make the audience see, hear, smell and feel the sensuous realities of the blind participants. Let us return to Søren who, in ‘The Space before Sleep’, rejects the biblical cliché of the ignorant blind and describes his own form of spirituality as ‘a fully sensory experience, instead of believing only’. While the video shows Søren haptically discovering a church, dancing and whistling in the crypt underneath, his voiceover goes on to explain: ‘I often walk or run to explore the world, a spiritual way of concurring or making it mine.’ The viewer is gradually drawn into Søren’s subjective perspective, growing more familiar with the blind man’s sensory practices and habits.

This is the outcome of what I would call Steinbock’s phenomenological approach: by temporarily bracketing her own sightedness, so to speak, the artist tries to open up herself to how the world presents itself to a blind person’s consciousness. No doubt, this is a very delicate exercise, which can only yield its fruits after long-standing, close contacts with the blind subjects she works with. This phenomenological approach is also clearly reflected in the composition of the works. That is to say, not only do Kristina’s blind informants become active participants or even actors within the various performances, the detailed phenomenological descriptions they provide are also being integrated in various pieces by means of a voiceover for example. But the varied, sensuous worlds of the blind even inform the use of expressive means on a more intrinsic level. Take the second story from ‘The Space before Sleep’: while Nina is sharing intimate secrets with us about her sexual pleasures and uncertainties, the camera eye is turned into an eroticizing touch nearly stroking the young woman’s wet hair and skin, or the textile of her alluring underwear and dress.

We, as blind people, are very much aware of being surrounded by the sighted, of being looked at and being judged on our appearance. These awareness influences the way we move, we interact with others, the way we speak and execute our daily tasks so as not to deviate too much from what the sighted majority expects. It might as well play a key part in the game of seduction, as Nina recalls from an online dating session with K, for whom she was slowly stripping naked: ‘He noticed that I tend to fidget a lot (bite my lips, wiggle my hands around, and rock back and forth) when I'm particularly aroused, which I think is indicative of my brain struggling with how to utilize the arousal and turn it into something vividly sexual, especially when someone else is watching.’

Kristina’s artwork thus subtly disrupts many old stereotypes surrounding blindness, by foregrounding the sensory and social practices that make up everyday life with a visual impairment. Her work thereby breaks long-lasting taboos. The participants can freely discuss emotive themes like sexual desire and parenthood, which for ages have been unmentionable in relation to disability (with the notorious exception of eugenic discourse). Lykke for example, the third storyteller from ‘The Space before Sleep’ proudly introduces herself as ‘a woman, someone’s wife, somebody’s judo opponent and someone’s mother’. All such unique stories remind us for instance of the fact that no-one is just blind, but that a person’s visual impairment needs to be understood within the context of the many roles she adopts. Meanwhile, as an artist Kristina acknowledges the immense richness these people have to offer, not in spite of, but thanks to their blindness. Sure enough, being blind in a resolutely sight-oriented society is not always easy and fun. Yet, accounts like the ones we have heard from Sören, Nina and Lykke prove that this uncommon experience incessantly feeds their resilience and creativity.

Living with a disability is comparable to making art in the sense that they both force us to subvert collective rules, to shake off stifling norms and reinvent our means of expression time and again. Similarly, they both resist the illusory myth of the body’s malleability, by uncovering the unpredictable fragility of the human condition. In short, it is a very hopeful sign whenever, like in this catalogue, disability and authentic art meet. 

Biography Piet Devos (Kortrijk, 1983), PhD in Modern Romance Literature and developed a cultural-historical method for analyzing literary texts through the lens of con- temporaneous sensory practices and discourses.He went blind at the age of five, an experience that triggered his interest in sensory perception.