The correlation between acoustics and perception is the focal exploration of Alena Halmes’s Eyes closed. An invisible design language (2019). This video work showcases five glass drinking vessels designed by the artist following discussive fieldwork and interviews. The haptic informed glassware is set into motion through use as the artist demonstrates a commitment to auditory enlightenment that precedes aesthetic privileging and debunks able-centric understandings of function. Halmes’s video work also integrates speech. Recorded perceptions of water in different stages — including boiling and dripping from the tap — that foreground acoustic and pondered images interrupt footage of the objects in motion. The resulting work of art is a film that casts lights on stylized design that imagines beyond sight-based realities.

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