In the fall of 2018, the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver opened an exhibition curated by Sandra Still Campbell, Clyfford Still’s younger daughter. The exhibition was titled A Daughter’s Eye / A Daughter’s Voice. For the exhibition, we produced a narrative-style podcast that we installed in the galleries. The podcast unfolds in four audio chapters, each over eight minutes long. It also features an original score and weaves in archival recordings of Clyfford Still.
We chose audio for its intimacy. However, we created video files for each video chapter in order to make the audio content visible in some way. To do this, we created animated soundwaves of the speakers and captioned the video files. This also made the audio accessible to people with hearing impairments.
The podcast was installed in the galleries using commercially available hardware and software. A phablet played the looped content in an application that kept the interface locked down and secured. A bluetooth transmitter allowed us to pair multiple, wireless headphones to the phablets.
For patrons who prefered to use their own devices, we provided an option to text to receive the file. The podcast was also made available online and through common aggregators like Apple Podcast and Google Play. Individually packaged earbuds and iPhone dongles were readily available for those using their own devices.
Typical audio guide production dictates a maximum of 90–120 seconds per stop. And traditional audio guide installations prioritize an uninterrupted visual experience of the art. We ventured to do the opposite in both cases in order to test long-form, narrative-style storytelling and a visual and physical presentation of that content.