Define Your Journey is a Disabled-led interactive online music experience based upon the themes of Jo-anne Cox’s live stage show Defiant Journey.
You are warmly invited to experience our first online R and D, completed 2022, with an interactive digital instrument designed by creative technologist Charles Matthews, creative audio description by Kate Lovell can be turned on or off. Please follow the link below.
https://blurringtheboundaries.org/dyj
Here is an extract of music and film from Define Your Journey 2022 R and D, Film by Ivan Riches.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the planned tour of Jo-anne’s live show was postponed and adapted for audiences to enjoy it digitally.
In 2020 Jo-anne and her collaborators tested a pilot project to explore the possibilities of embedding access and audience participation into an immersive online audio-visual adventure. Arts Council funding the following year ensured that the team could further develop Define Your Journey and its captivating combination of music , digital arts, visuals and storytelling.
The project continues the DYJ team’s work to research the accessibility of presenting work online. This includes particular interest in the creative integration of access features for d/Deaf, neurodivergent and visually impaired / blind audiences.
Define Your Journey You Tube Pilot 2020
audio described version.
Define Your Journey 2020 You Tube pilot
Non audio described version
Meet the Team
Foteini Galanopoulou – Project Manager / Access Support
Foteini is a London-based producer and cultural projects manager with a focus on barrier-free environments, inclusive practices and cultural crossings.
Since 2007 she has worked in disability-led art companies and collaborated with a range of independent artists, disabled and non-disabled. In previous roles she consulted arts organisations on accessibility and managed European programmes on inclusive design.
She has undertaken initiatives to increase visibility of the Greek Sign Language in Greece and is currently part-time General Manager at Vital Xposure, a disabled-led theatre company based in London.
Kate Lovell – Dramaturg / Director
Kate Lovell is a disabled director and artist-activist working in theatre, film, poetry, digital arts and journalism to effect social change. In 2020, Kate worked as writer on Our Memory Jars, an in-home artistic experience for adults managing dementia and their carers, co-produced by Bread and Goose and Supersum.
She is artist-facilitator for A Space To Be, a creative project connecting young people with museum spaces. Kate was a recipient of a Testing Ground commission from the New Wolsey Theatre to work on her play Zero and her short play, Selfie, was produced as part of Crips with Chips at Home by Graeae Theatre.
Charles Matthews – Creative Technologist
Charles Matthews has been making electronic music in some shape or form for twenty odd years. His current work as an interdisciplinary artist and reluctant technologist has grown out of a dissatisfaction with current tools, which has naturally led to various collaborations with a focus on accessibility.
Upon moving from London to Montreal in 2020, Charles established Blurring the Boundaries Arts (a Disability-led not-for-profit organisation) with Gift Tshuma and David Bobier. Having started out as a cross-cultural collaboration through the British Council’s New Conversations program, the team is meeting with artists across Canada and the UK to develop playful, open-source approaches for non-specialists to manipulate sound, light, and vibration.
Anders Morris Knight – Digital Marketing Associate
Anders Morris Knight is a CIM-qualified marketing professional and creative consultant. He has worked in the arts and third sector for over 15 years. Within the music industry he ran Hello Thor Records for a decade, as well as promoting and managing a host of live events.
Alongside his marketing work he has more recently designed and facilitated training, as well as supporting, mentoring and coaching a range of artists and creatives. He is committed to using his skills to make the cultural sector fairer and more inclusive.
Liz Porter – Creative Consultant
Liz Porter is an experienced performance storyteller and accessibility consultant. She has worked in the arts & cultural industries for over 25 years.
Passionate about Equality with particular interest in the representation of disability & Creative access. Liz collaborates with others to find innovative, poetic and imaginative ways to share their work.
Joe Strickland – Digital Producer
Joe Strickland is a prolific, theatre maker, digital producer, and creative technologist with great energy and passion. They are the Artistic Director of Chronic Insanity, the Executive Producer of Strickland Productions, the Digital Producer for DaDaFest and a Trustee of SICK! Productions and The King’s Hall Trust For The Arts. They are an artist in development with the Nottingham Playhouse, a BBC New Creative, and a studio member with Near Now. They are a PhD researcher looking at Future Experience Technologies and Storytelling.
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Funding Support
Thanks to Arts Council England for supporting the further R&D of Define Your Journey.
Project Partners
Define Your Journey is supported by:
Blurring the Boundaries
https://blurringtheboundaries.org/
Disability Arts Online
https://disabilityarts.online/
Together!2012
http://www.together2012.org.uk/
With Thanks
Previous support from Help Musicians UK’s Do It Differently Fund enabled the design and development of radio-controlled lighting which contributed to this project.
