The Radical Accessibility of Video Art (for Hearing People)

The implementation of video as an artistic medium is often described as motivated by radical ambitions toward art’s accessibility. Yet when these works are displayed in museums, they seldom include closed captions necessary to make their content accessible to deaf/Deaf audiences. Historic works of video art are thus often not accessible, as it remains taboo to alter an “original” work of art by adding captions. This logic privileges the work’s original aesthetic experience over its accessibility in spite of the fact that (1) many works of historic video art were first, or additionally, shown on television, where closed captions are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and (2) such works are almost never shown in their original format anyway. When spirits of radical access are claimed yet closed captions are not provided, a message is sent about who counts as “everyone” when art is meant for all. This article will examine the aversion to captions when displaying historic works of video arts in museums, consider the rights and responsibilities of video artists and curators, and, ultimately, ask that we rethink our aesthetic (and thereby ethical) paradigm which privileges faithfulness to an “original” over accessibility. Ultimately, I insist that captioning embodies the spirit of access that motivated so many artists to use video in the first place, and museums should preserve this spirit rather than faithfulness to an “original.”