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Essay / Analysis of Eyeth's Deaf Extraterrestrial Visitors by Paul Scearce
Paul Scearce's De'VIA work titled “Eyeth's Deaf Alien Visitors” is a great example of a resistance artwork. The scene depicts several important themes in De'VIA such as misconceptions of deaf people, judgmental behaviors of those who do not understand deaf culture, lack of communication and lack of sense of community as well as the alienation of deaf people and the negative view of ASL. There are also some more subtle themes related to affirmation, such as the deaf's search for Eyeth and their attempt to educate others about the merits of ASL for deaf people. The most important element of the scene is the heads of the individuals. in photo. Individuals with ears for heads represent the population who rely primarily on their hearing to communicate and visitors with hands for heads represent the deaf population who communicate with sign language. This physical difference represents the communication barrier between the two cultures. Cultures have different sensory orientations. One culture is acoustically oriented while the other is visually oriented. It is these different orientations that created the barrier. Deaf culture relies on their hands and eyes to communicate (hence the hands as heads emphasizing their "ASL spirit") while the majority culture relies on their ears and mouths to communicate (symbolized by ears as heads which emphasize the "hearing mind"). Lack of communication leads to misconceptions and judgment about the deaf community and its culture. Misconceptions about deaf people are portrayed in the depiction of deaf people as aliens. People who don't understand them have alienated them. The lack of communication has caused... in the middle of the diary ...... that "sometimes many hearing people treat us deaf people like aliens or weirdos" (Scearce). Many of these problems could be solved if the root of the problem was addressed and people sought to raise awareness about the deaf community, deaf culture, and the deaf lifestyle. YouTube. YouTube, December 9, 2010. Web. November 25, 2013. Boggs, Alison. “North Idaho father of deaf child to appear in court.” The Spokesman's Review. Np, April 10, 2010. Web. November 25, 2013.Cherry, Kendra. “Understanding body language”. About.com Psychology. About.com, and Web. November 25, 2013.Cuncic, Arlin. “A quick guide to understanding and improving body language.” About.com Social Anxiety Disorder. About.com, April 30, 2013. Web. November 25, 2013. Scearce, Paul. Deaf alien visitors from Eyeth. 2013. Pinterest. April 18, 2013. The web. November 21. 2013.