Eyes Wide Shut

Web App: Bare Minim - Fugitive Sounds from Enclosed Places

is an interactive audio-visual player that uses Processing’s (P3) graphical interface to explore oral histories,  archival audio, and narratives otherwise unseen, unheard, or overlooked.

This exhibition builds on a research project I participated in while an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), called “Lyrical Minded: Narratives of Justice”(Bain, 2017). The audio-visual player collaborates and sources poetry from students at UCLA and inmates inside the Barry J. Nidorf (BJN) Juvenile Hall. Fugitive narratives from the youth prison talk about freedom, respect, and retribution while enduring life sentences. The design of Bare Minim highlights the tension between communities of color and the criminal justice system. In this paper, we will discuss Bare Minim as a response to the need for awareness of injustices impacting the youth of color in North America.