Visual impairment: its impact upon and implications for aesthetic experience

With this research programme, I will be looking at how visually impaired people interpret the sensory inputs that artwork evokes together with the spatial environment that visually impaired people engage with.
The study intertwines concepts of aesthetics that have specific relevance for visually impaired people, together with the processes and concepts associated with vision. The study refers to some common beliefs regarding blindness and provides some evidence of links between art and blindness.
The study reflects upon how human cognitive processes are different for blind people, the use of verbal description used by visually impaired people and comments upon the logical reasoning processes developed by people with sight loss.
Finally the study teases out methods of media manipulation, the interplay of different sensory stimulus and the control that visually impaired people endeavour to exert over an unseen environment.
The nature of this research will be developed into a programme which explores and revisits the central themes of study using a system of concentric evolution. (See methodology section.) As a result, this 'intertwining study' will examine the values of
each strand of research and will provide data regarding the aesthetic understanding and creative processes used by people with visual impairment, together with an appreciation of the methods blind people engage with to understand and use spatial properties.

A thesis submitted to Middlesex University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.