Description as Distortion as Disruption
This figure is dressed as a boy scout, in an army-green, short-sleeved button up, shorts, hiking boots, grey athletic socks, and a neck kerchief. Let’s call them Boy Scout. Boy Scout is white, masculine-of-centre, and solidly built. They are restrained with black wrist cuffs attached to a chain. More chains are wrapped around Boy Scout’s waist. Boy Scout is being led toward the floor-bed by a sixth figure who is also white, lean, and muscular, and wears a pink tank top. Let’s call them Tank Top….
Excerpt and screen shot from Slumberparty by Cait McKinney and Hazel Meyer, 2018. Original film, Slumberparty, by the Positive Pornographers, 1984.
I reached out to Hazel Meyer after learning about Slumberparty, a descriptive audio porn film project she did with Cait McKinney in 2018. The 25 min. video depicts a dark room with a film projector in the foreground. In the darkened background we see the projection of a very blurry version of the film Slumberparty, by the Positive Pornographers (1984). We are unable to make out any forms in detail, just soft blurry erotic shapes and warm red and yellow toned colours. We hear both the sound of the film projector as well as the description of the porn. I was drawn to the way a method of access informed the basis of this work and the aesthetics. I reached out to Hazel to learn more:
E. Tell me about Slumberparty!
HAZEL After working on Tape Condition: degraded, the project Cait and I did at the CLGA (Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives) about digitization and porn and the progenitor of the Dream Tapes series, we were left with this amazing Super8 porn reel and no way to show it. The original Slumberparty had been made collectively in 1984 with the stipulation that all contributors had to sign off for it to be shown. For the last 3 years we've been in the process of finding the folks involved. Not easy! I remember Cait was talking about writing about the project as a way to keep the momentum up and I was floundering, writing is not my preferred method! I started thinking about how to show something without images and/or how to describe these images while keeping people anonymous. Audio-description!
E. I love that audio description served so many new roles with this project. It became a way to provide a distortion to sighted audiences - a delicious flip on its usual intention. I‘m also drawn to the way description allowed you to work with the imagery instead of having to write about it. Have you used description in other works?
HAZEL This is the first time either of us have used audio-description and truthfully our use of it was born of an ethical situation more than anything. The only thing I can really put my finger on is that about a year before I had spent 2 weeks completely itemizing and describing this collection of 'stuff' (about 100 things) I had bought at a thrift store while in Geneva for 3 months. I didn't know how to honour this collection that had really gotten me through a pretty rough 3 months. Spending the time really looking and describing these things felt like it was my turn to take care of them. So maybe that? The images in the OG Slumberparty are quite gorgeous, especially the beginning that is all sequinned and lush fabrics- it was shot on Kodachrome, so shit is booootiful! I remember trying to describe it to someone after Cait and I had seen it for the first time. So language and this film in particular had a connection from the beginning. Oh, also, the audio cassette for the film was lost years ago, so it is effectively a silent film.
E. Wow so interesting - You are exploring description as a method for consent, and as a method to honour that which is described. Its’s quite common now in Crip spaces and conferences that we all take some time to describe what we look like. Recently at Cripping the Arts, the Elder Mona Stonefish (Bear Clan) used the opportunity to talk about her history and herself through the description of her body - and it reminded us all that it wasn’t just an activity of vanity but it was also an opportunity for storytelling. I really started in Disability arts when I worked at the National Gallery as the accessibility educator, and I did a lot of training at MoMA and the Met in New York, on how to describe art works. It’s not easy! I think it works best when we we work out the text with experts with lived experiences in non-visual perception and we approach description as its own artistic practice - taking the opportunity to provide interpretation or context. But that is not the way professional describers work - and some want a more “objective” experience . How did you go about this description? Did you hire someone or did you both write or edit it?
HAZEL Originally we asked an acquaintance of mine to write the script for the audio-description. This person is Crip identified and we had spoken about access (specifically bowel related stuff) and power, and they told me they were well versed in audio-description and such. Cait and I were totally thrilled to have them on board, but it fell through at the last moment because of their scheduling stuff. So Cait wrote it in a one day porn-describing marathon! We then edited it together, and passed it back and forth a few times. My dream for this project is to have a few other folks (who move through the world differently than Cait and I do) to write a script for it and to have other versions of the film with these descriptions. There is so much of Cait in the Slumberparty 2018 audio-description, the humour, the adjectives, Cait's limited knowledge of undergarments (lolz). Like, with this film, I don't think there could be an objective description of it, at all. Originally we tried to get an audio-description service to write the script, but they refused on the grounds of the content (ha!). A few years ago Porn Hub started audio-describing some of their videos!
E. Let’s just unpack that for moment right? If video describers refuse to describe porn this results in folks who require description, to not have access - or only have access to what Porn-Hub describes - which is going to be pretty heteronormative. To me this adds so much more richness to the project, as it also serves as a disruption to the stale narratives that Disabled people are not sexual beings, or don’t deserve access to sexuality and further disrupts, by providing access to collectively created queer porn.
HAZEL Audio-description allowed Cait and I the freedom (?!) to show the film while respecting the original collaborators wishes. Though, what it allowed us to do in the end felt so much more expansive than that. Like who is porn for!!! Who gets to watch it, enjoy it, get off on it, all of that, and so much more!! In all honesty, while we call it porn, and it was made to be porn, it is quite soft and sweet and funny. More like an art project between a bunch of pals, something meant to be more raunchy than perhaps it ended up being.
E. It’s brilliant. So - last question - and perhaps most importantly - WHO IS THAT SEXY VOICE?
HAZEL Ah, YES, the voice! It's our pal Amy Fung. She has got the deepest, dustiest, sexiest voice ever. She ran the Images festival for a few years, then got one of those CCA New Chapter grants to write a book. It should be coming out soon. It's titled something brilliant like: Before I was a critic, I was human being. Love love love.
Please check out Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney’s work