Your translated memory or mine? Re-membering graphic novels in performed audio descriptions for The Cartoon Museum, London

Abstract

This article offers a practical and theoretical exploration of a (highly) specialised type of comics re-mediation, namely, audio described (AD) comics for the Blind and Partially Sighted (BPS). Building on relevant work in comics studies and translation studies, it is argued that translation activity, broadly seen to include interlingual as well as intersemiotic translation (Jakobson 1959), helps rewrite original works. Translation is defined as a blend, or a hybrid mental space combining characteristics of source and target contexts. As such, it entails the imbrication of personal memory, collective memory and the diffusion of a translator’s memory in linguistic codes, social milieus, textual traditions and digital capabilities at play. AD exhibits the same blend logic in that it selectively contains visual source-text information in target-text audio performance. An exploratory comics AD pilot project at The Cartoon Museum (London) serves as an exemplar. The project consists of three phases: a focused interview with the creative team (describer, curator, comic artists); scripting and performance of three AD samples; and collecting feedback from BPS visitors. The project reveals how collective memory started to form in this dialogic process and, ultimately, which aspects of AD practice may be deemed to be effective.