In this episode contributor Lauren Cornwell interviews Betty Siegel, Director of VSA and Accessibility at the Kennedy Center, to discuss technology, accessibility and inclusion. This is part 2 of a two-part episode. Listen to part 1 here.
Part 2:
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Alyssa: Hello AMT Lab listeners, and welcome to the Arts Management and Technology Lab podcast. My name is Alyssa and I am the Podcast Producer. In continuation of part one of this interview, contributor Laurin Cornwell spoke with Betty Siegel, Director of VSA and Accessibility at the Kennedy Center, where they discuss technology, accessibility and inclusion. We hope you enjoy the concluding half of this interview.
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LC: Well, thank you so much.
BS: Cut me off if I’m talking so much - there's nothing better than being asked to talk about something you're excited about! [laughter]
LC: We are so thrilled to have you here with us. Um, I guess, speaking of the Kennedy Center, maybe you could talk a little bit about specifically how you utilize technology to maybe share certain solutions in the accessibility space? What are others in the field? And maybe what are some of the organization's goals for accessibility and inclusion initiatives in the future?
BS: You may have to break that down well point at a time. I forget when you do three. So, what was the first point?
LC: So the first point is talking about how you utilize technology or your solutions and share them within the field
BS: Oh, I didn’t ask you to define technology for me at the beginning of our conversation, what do you think of as technology?
LC: So I think for our listeners, a technology actually can span a wide variety of things. I think we tend to skew digital and sort of lots of VR, AI, but we're open to definitely a multi-faceted version of technology. So however, the Kennedy Center maybe interprets that as well. We'd love to hear that point of view.
BS: Okay, well, I'm not sure how to [inaudible] the Kennedy Center. But there's some of the technology that I think is that we, that we've seen, and I don't know where it's going to go. Because I just may not have the vision to push it as far as, as somebody who's more a native user, user of technology, I think of myself as a visitor to technology. We've started to see VR trying to be introduced into the cultural space, right. So, an example of this was something that I saw at the Smithsonian Institute, they had a traveling exhibit. It was a Japanese artist, who actually is a woman who had significant mental health issues. And I'm going to space on her name right now… But she does really cool artwork. She does as a lot of interesting figures and dots, and she does infinity rooms.
Unknown person: Yayoi Kusama
LC: Oh, from the Mattress Factory, right down the river.
Unknown person: Yeah, with the red dots.
BS: Yeah, she’s an amazing artist but she lived in a mental health hospital almost all her entire life. But the Smithsonian just had an exhibit by her and they were exhibiting her infinity rooms, which are these spaces that are all made out of mirrors. And, and at the end, you go into the room, usually physically go into the room on this little walkway. Through very narrow doors, sometimes the doors are only about 18 inches wide, and you're on this walkway that's maybe at least two inches wide and you've got mirrors and mirrors and you have to stay on the walkway. And it's this repeating pattern that she absolutely excels at doing. And the question was, well, what if you're a wheelchair user, how do you experience that art because the doors only 18 inches wide. And this is a dilemma for our administrators, especially in museums working with visual arts is that if that's the art, and that's the art experience, we can't go and tell artists not to please design the door to be 32 inches wide and, and we certainly aren't going to go in and modify a piece of artwork to make the door 32 inches wide so a wheelchair user can go in there.
I actually would have the conversation with the artists like if the artists were living artists, I might go to them and say, you know, this is beautiful. We're so excited to have this installation. But I noticed on the specs that your doors are only 22 inches, why, would you consider doing a 32-inch-wide door? Would you allow us to modify it for 32-inch door so that it's inclusive art so everybody in our community? And I say everybody I mean everybody has the opportunity to participate and some artists. I think museums are reluctant to ask artists to do that stuff. Some artists will say yes, some may say no, but some will say yes, but within this case, there wasn't going to be a modification of that built piece of art. And so the Smithsonian really experiment with VR, and I got a chance to try the, the virtual reality tour of an infinity room. What was really cool about it when you physically went into the Infinity remake time do you have like 30 seconds and just like walk in experience walk out and you were like, you're told to leave. With the VR, I could spend as much time in that room as I wanted, which is good for everybody, but in particular, might be a value to people with disabilities. Some people process processing disorders might need more than 30 seconds to really encompass incorporate and process the experience so could be really good for that was really good for someone who couldn't physically get through the door, they could still experience what it felt like you can open the door and I can kind of peek in that's not the same experiences the immersion, which was clearly the intent of the artist. And VR allowed me to have that immersion experience without being physically in the room.
That technology I think was perfect for that exhibit. And they really worked hard to make that work. I don't know how you try to take that translate that to a life theater experience. How would VR enhance that experience for us, especially when live theater is live for a reason, right? The experience has a lot to do with sitting next to you and our shoulders are touching and you start to laugh and I catch you laugh and laugh then kind of radiate throughout the eyes. The yard won't necessarily replicate that. Right. So I'm interested to see how someone with a lot more creativity and vision and I can kind of take that VR technology and leverage it to enhance experiences or to a lot of people experience it.
Another technology that I think I'm keeping an eye on and that we've played with at the Kennedy Center is telepresence robots. Oh, robots are so sexy right? [laughter] We did a technology and design exhibit a few years ago, where we were looking for technology that supported people with disabilities, but that was also beautifully designed like artistically designed. So we were looking at some prosthetic devices like you know, used to this, like we went from peg leg to, you know, that funky looking leg that never looked like a leg to now with 3d printing, for example, people are 3D printing their own prosthetics. And a sometimes it can be much more financially affordable. So, you've got, you know, various different organizations that are actually printing 3D prosthetic hands and arms for kids who wouldn't otherwise have a chance to have that because the technology is too expensive. But we can 3D printer, they make the open source, which I think is really cool. But that beautiful design, you are also seeing people that are those hands look very functional, although they do make them cool colors like kids. But you're also seeing people actually designing limbs to be a radically interesting, so it's no longer about hiding that limb, but actually it becomes a form of self-expression. And they're very out there with it. And there's some really interesting stuff with 3D printing or just simply looking at a prosthetic piece as not being something you want to hide or shame or ashamed of or as really a functional thing but actually as an, as much an expression as your clothing. So I tattoos that I think is really cool technology.
But back to robots. And [inaudible] back to robots. Oh design, beautiful things that are beautifully designed. So we brought in some robots that we thought were interesting technologies that were being leveraged to support people with disabilities, but they're also beautifully designed. So a lot of actually, Japanese work with robots is happening right now. And they've designed like this robot called Pepper. Some of the robots they've been designing have been specifically designed to help older adults as we age, to live normal lives. Like, what happens when you get to the point where, you know, opening the cap on your medicine is too difficult for you, but Pepper can open the cap on your medicine, right? And how cool because then you don't need a live person to just be hanging around waiting to open the cap on your medicine. So they're developing these robots to, to function either in healthcare settings or in community settings where people need a level of support that may be too expensive to provide if it's a live human being.
So that stuff is really interesting. Those robots are beautifully designed so we had this little robot and then again spacing on the name of the little robot. But you can see him if you google hippie, he dances safe program to do the dance. The uh, the Korean dance, dude, oh man, I'm really…
LC: Gangham style?
BS: Oh, yes! You can Google it, they've got their video of this little robot. The thing is, is you don't realize how little he is. He's only about 18 or 20 inches tall, so he's kind of a small dude. And he's not so autonomous, it was interesting to get him because it's his beautifully designed his articulated fingers and he does this little dance which you can't help love with him and he's a robot! So it's so cool. But we don't have the dance, he kept falling over. He hurt his little foot. And then he would only get to a certain point the dance and then he just stopped because all he would do is could fall over.
But the potential there is what's really cool, right? Especially for people with disabilities who may end up limiting their activities because they don't have the level of support that they need. And maybe a robot could fill in for that in a way that a human be, would still be able to do but might not be as readily available, or finance-, financial issues might prohibit it, but we used robots at the Kennedy Center called telepresence robots. You've heard of those are seen those?
LC: I haven't seen telepresence robots.
BS: Oh, so telepresence robots - there's a million different brands out there that are experimenting with telepresence robot and robots. And a lot of museums have been experimenting with them as a different way for people to engage in the space. And we had a gentleman whose name was Henry Evans. He's done a TED talk, very interesting guy who had a really unusual disabling condition. And so he went from being fully able to like be paralyzed, all except for like his face and eyes in like seconds. For him to get out of the house, and to go places is a big production, right, and it's time intensive, its people intensive, is a wonderful family that really are there for him. He's incredibly lucky. But, you know, to fly across the country to see a showcase center would be really difficult thing, and maybe even harmful to his health, I don't know. But he wants to experience the Kenny Center, so he asked us to try out this telepresence robot, which we did. And the cool thing about the telepresence robot is, and I don't want to denigrate the technology, but it's kind of like having an iPad on wheels. The difference, so again, what’s exciting about it because like, I could take Henry, I could Skype Henry into my phone, and I could just walk Henry around my building on Skype, and he'd be able to see and hear and everything right, but I am still controlling what Henry sees and hears and where we're going, or he has to say turn up, I'd really like to see what's over there. What's I thought I saw something over there. The thing about the telepresence robot is, is the person on the other end, so Henry in California logs into the telepresence robot and he controls the robot. He decides where to walk, and where to go, and how long to stay there. Right. And so he came to us at the Kennedy Center was very cool.
Little kids were fascinated. And what I found fascinating about Henry's interaction with these little kids was the kids. They're so amazing. They really were puzzled by one thing, which was, was Henry real or not like, Henry, because what you see on this telepresence robot is they designed this robot, the telepresence robot that we have is produced, called a beam, I am, again, not endorsing, or anything like that, but it just happens to be the one we have, they deliberately designed it to be the height of the human so it's actually it's called by myself too. And so the, the interface, the live where the picture is and where we see Henry, because he's got a camera aimed at him and I've got a camera with me, is about the height of my head. So he's like talking to me. And the kids would come up and they'd see Henry's in there his face. And they were like, Where? What are you? Where - are you in the machine? What they couldn't figure out was where was Henry? And I just found the way these kids interacted with Henry to be passing. We had an exhibit hall and there was one little boy about two years old running, toddling about and he loved Henry, he would not leave Henry. And he then he would turn around and look over his shoulder like, are you going to chase me? And Henry, who was like this cool dad person, like chased him like this. You have this, we have this great telepresence robot chasing the two year old and this two year old is giggling and running, and they played hide and seek, it was amazing!
LC: No, that’s incredible. I love how much you can use that technology to experience the physical space as well. I guess then I'm also interested in moving from the physical space into more of like the digital space right?
BS: Wait, but can we, can I add one thing?
LC: Yes, of course.
BS: Okay, so one problem that we discovered with telepresence robots is they don't have arms or hands.
LC: Oops.
BS: Small problem there.
Unknown speaker: May I ask a quick question about them? The robots, are they voice activated or they control - how is Henry making the robot move?
BS: Henry is making the robot move through an interface on his computer. And because Henry himself only has eye control, he's using eye movement to control the road, to control the telephone, the robot itself. Okay. On his end, yeah, I am sure that you could be voice activated. And when we're doing it, like we're driving the beam around, we're doing with, you can load the beam stuff on your phone and we can control it with our fingers. So it's a physical interface. Very cool. But the problem with a telepresence robot not having hands is that if you're in a building with elevators, you would get to certain point in the built environment where you're like, Okay, we're at the elevator now. So you would have to, Henry has to hang around until somebody comes by and pushes the button. Or we actually end up having, when Henry comes to visit us, there's usually a staff person or volunteer who walks with Henry, but not to tell him where to go or what to do, but to push the button on the elevator or open the doors!
BS: So now what's really fun is what goes on the elevator, or the beam or anybody can tell you the beam goes on the elevator because the Wi Fi in the elevator is not so good. So what happens is, you're on the elevator, the elevator door closes Henry goes [sound of device powering down] and kind of fade to black. And then the elevator doors open and you go [sound of device powering on] and Henry’s back! [laughter] Sorry [laughter]
LS: No, absolutely! [inaudible chatter]
BS: And we didn't think about the fact that not having hands or arms would be a problem.
LC: Next iteration!
BS: Yeah,
Unknown speaker: Yeah, I feel like we could go on forever about how we could -
BS: But we talked, oh we talked about this, is, we're so silly. But you know, we're problem solvers. So we're like, what if we taped a stick to the body of the telepresence that just was constantly sticking out? And then you could just run into the elevator button. If it's taped on, you can only press level one. [laughter] But I love my team for thinking about stuff like that.
So yes, digital.
LS: Absolutely. So transitioning to the digital space. Just like maybe really briefly, we can talk about how arts institutions can improve or even what they should be doing specifically on things like web pages to meet the needs for access- sorry, accessibility and inclusion.
BS: So not to be a downer here. But this, 2018, there, there, the law firm in DC, Seyfarth Shaw, a wonderful lawyer named Linda collects this data on how many lawsuits are being filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act in federal court. And she came up with some very interesting statistics. So we like, in 2018, there were 2000 more lawsuits against entities because of web sites than there was the year before. That's a huge increase. So web technology can be very accessible and I do encourage people to go to WCAG, and they, it's the W C three, W three C, one of those two combinations of letters. It's a voluntary consortium of organizations who have looked at standards for what makes a website actually accessible. And the standards they produced are called WCAG. And they just updated them so used to be the best standard was WCAG 2.0 a and they had a Level A and then AAA - nobody could ever get to AAA so they settled on AA as the standard that most people would achieve, they've just updated.
So 2.1. We have 2.1 AA that you want to look at. But websites not being accessible is not only a huge liability, a potential risk, but they also cut people out. If somebody is blind, and your website is not accessible to them, they are not going to know what time the show starts. Because what do we all do? When we're trying to figure out when we're supposed to leave and we go online and we look it up on somebody's website, but if, if I can't even get the information off the website, then I don’t know what time the show starts. And worse, back it up- - If I can't even get on your website, then I don't know what your shows are or what your exhibits are, much less what hours you're open to the public. It's a huge barrier and not just for people who are blind or have low vision, although that's one of the bigger populations that digital technology can definitely cut out. Touch tables, for example, that are coming into museums, another huge barrier. Like, how does someone who can't see that touch table will know where to touch? So those can be big, exclusionary pieces of technology. Websites, also if they aren't set up to allow for like if, if you put a really small button – like you have to land your pointer just precisely that small button. If you have any type of mobility issues, if you have cerebral palsy, Parkinson's, you know, shaking or anything like that, landing on that teeny little button, that is impossible. So just small things like make the button bigger, use up tags, your images can really change that environment, that information environment for a lot of people.
LC: So well then I guess, kinda leaving it off a little more open ended, but is there any other advice or anything else you would like to discuss for our managers and our management in regards to accessibility and technology?
BS: Sure. So one of the things I don't usually talk about, but since we're talking about arts administrators, and what role you guys play in this, I'm going to be a little boring. This is not exciting, this is about what role can you play to ensure that your organization where you're working is accessible, I want to encourage you to do the boring part. Start with your contracts, right? Because you probably aren't designing the website yourself necessarily you hire somebody to design the website for you, which means there's some sort of agreement or contract that you're engaging in. And you cannot presume that that your contractor, your independent vendor, is going to do the right thing. You have got to look at those contracts and make sure that you're obligating these folks to design your website the right way. And so, I would encourage you to look at inserting a paragraph that simply says, “You will design this website in compliance with the voluntary standards that you can find it this WCAG blah, blah, blah”. Because as much as I'd like to believe that everybody wants to do the right thing, people really want to do the expedient thing. And web design when done well doesn't take any more time or energy. But if they're not familiar with these standards, and you're asking them to go and become familiar with it, understand how it intersects and inter-relates with everything on that site. I do think that what we have an obligation to is not to engage in contracts or agreements with entities that aren't able to deliver accessibility on our behalf. So that's not as exciting as robots.
LC: Well, I really appreciate that. I think it's a great piece of advice that us as arts administrators can really learn from and utilize as we move forward in our careers. So, I would like to thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us. It's been so great speaking to you. And I really think our listeners are going to take away some really fantastic insights. And I think your thoughts about the connectivity between art accessibility and technology are, you know, so valid and so, right for the times that we live in, and I think it's such an important discussion that we're having as arts managers. So again, I thank you for being here.
BS: Thank you for having me. I really, really enjoyed it.
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Thanks for listening to the arts management and Technology Lab podcast series. You can read more on the intersection between the arts and technology@www.am T dash lab.org. Or you can listen to more interviews and discussions and our podcast series on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher. Thank you for joining us.
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