Search

Seeing with Sound: A Short Film Follows the Man Teaching Echolocation to Blind People

17 Jul, 2024

This post was originally published on Colossal



Daniel Kish has taught thousands of students worldwide an essential skill: to see with sound. A lifelong advocate for the blind, Kish is a pioneer in echolocation, the ability to perceive one’s surroundings by making clicking noises or tapping a cane. As sound waves bump onto nearby walls and objects, the noises they reflect create a sort of audible map. “If I click at a surface,” he says in a new short documentary, “it answers back.”

Directed by Ben Wolin and Michael Minahan for The New Yorker, “Echo” follows Kish and a few students who have benefited from his teachings. We witness a young boy learning to skateboard despite being told it’s too dangerous and hear from Juan, the first person Kish decided to help learn echolocation who has since become a lifelong friend.  As the film moves through streets and various locations, animations accompany the soundscapes to help visualize what Kish and others experience as they interpret their surroundings.

In addition to celebrating powerful bonds between people, “Echo” is also a striking example of how adaptable and ingenious the human body is, considering studies show that the brain interprets echolocation in the same region that it processes visuals for sighted people. With the proper training and a skilled teacher like Kish, echoes can provide not only the position, distance, and size of an object but also the shape and even texture.

This opens up more possibilities for experiencing the world, which Kish notes at the end of the film:  “Doors aren’t open to blind kinds in this society or almost any society. The doors are shut, barred, locked. You have to kick down that door because we’ve spent millennia being kept in the dark.”

Watch “Echo” on Vimeo.

 

a man sits at the top of a concrete barrier with a crack down the center

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Seeing with Sound: A Short Film Follows the Man Teaching Echolocation to Blind People appeared first on Colossal.

Pass over the stars to rate this post. Your opinion is always welcome.
[Total: 0 Average: 0]

You may also like…

Coca-Cola’s Plastic Waste Polluting Oceans Projected to Reach 1.3 Billion Pounds per Year by 2030: Oceana Report

Coca-Cola’s Plastic Waste Polluting Oceans Projected to Reach 1.3 Billion Pounds per Year by 2030: Oceana Report

Coca-Cola products will be responsible for up to 1.33 billion pounds of plastic waste making its way into the planet’s oceans and waterways each year by 2030 — enough to fill the stomachs of more than 18 million blue whales, according to a new report by nonprofit Oceana. Coca-Cola’s World With Waste projects that the […]
The post Coca-Cola’s Plastic Waste Polluting Oceans Projected to Reach 1.3 Billion Pounds per Year by 2030: Oceana Report appeared first on EcoWatch.

Climate Change Has Exposed Over 1,000 More Miles of Greenland’s Coastline in 20 Years: Study

Climate Change Has Exposed Over 1,000 More Miles of Greenland’s Coastline in 20 Years: Study

As our planet has experienced increased warming over the last several decades due to greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, glaciers around the world have been shrinking. An international team of scientists has found that global heating has, over the past two decades, melted enough of Greenland’s glacial ice that 1,006.6 more […]
The post Climate Change Has Exposed Over 1,000 More Miles of Greenland’s Coastline in 20 Years: Study appeared first on EcoWatch.

“Colossal ice behemoth on the move”: This massive iceberg, larger than New York City, breaks free, captivating scientists worldwide

“Colossal ice behemoth on the move”: This massive iceberg, larger than New York City, breaks free, captivating scientists worldwide

IN A NUTSHELL 🧊 A23a, the world’s oldest and largest iceberg, has broken free from its icy trap and is drifting northward. 🌊 Encountering a Taylor Column, an oceanographic phenomenon, A23a was trapped in a swirling maelstrom before breaking free. 🌿 The iceberg’s journey releases crucial mineral nutrients and fresh water, impacting marine ecosystems both […]
The post “Colossal ice behemoth on the move”: This massive iceberg, larger than New York City, breaks free, captivating scientists worldwide appeared first on Sustainability Times.

0 Comments