Deaf Culture

For the last few days I have been looking at Deaf Culture. I've looked at a lot of different aspects.

I looked at Deaf Disco, a disco for Deaf people, witch uses sound, but also vibration, smell, movement and light. Stichting Skyway is a foundation that arranges event for deaf people, such as the party Sencity. By looking at the stuff this foundaton does I hope to get some inspiration for my own concepts.

I also looked more at signlanguage. Offcourse for deaf people signlanguage is important and is usually the first way of communicating, in Deaf Culture feeling positive about signlanguage is even more important. Something I didn´t realize in the beginning is that most country´s have there own signlanguage (just like spoken language). Some language's use letter's that aren't used in other countries. There are differences between Dutch, Belgian, French and American signlanguage, although they belong to the same family. There are sign for loose letters but also for entire words. Shown below is the dutch sign language alphabet.


In my research I choose to ignore the regular hearing aid device. People is Deaf Culture don't want to use these things because they don't see deafness as an handicap or they simpley can't get used to hearing.

I don't have concepts yet, but I am thinking in a certain direction. I would love to come up with a concept that could bring hearing and deaf people more together, maybe by experiencing the world in the same way. Ore something that reacts on on commen impulses between hearing and deaf people. It would be cool to think of something for deaf people taht is so cool dat hearing people want to have is aswell, maybe even starting a hype.

A concept that also fascinated me was that of the blind restaurant. In these restaurants it's so dark that you cant see anything. You are being guided to your table by a waiter that waers nightvision goggles. This is done so the customer completely focusses on the sensation en taste of food and the company of your dinner partner. Not being able to see each others facial expressions changes the way people have conversations. The biggest part of a conversation is done by reading each others facial expressions. Taking away someone's sight can have a very positive impact in this example. It hightens other senses and creates a specials and intimate ambience. Maybe taking away someones hearing can have a positive influence aswell.

I also shouldn't forget that the concepts have to be green. I must try to use this in any way possible.