The Oregon Project

An interactive experience of artwork augmented with sound that allows one to “hear” a large format drawing.

The Oregon Project is an installation by Artists Keith Salmon, Daniel Thornton, Graham Byron, and Microsoft Researcher Neel Joshi. It provides alternative insight and exploration of a landscape for those with limited sight and is centered around three new large format, abstract landscape drawings of the Oregon wilderness. This project builds on the research done at Microsoft by Kyle Rector, Neel Joshi, and Meredith Ringel Morris that addresses the challenges of visual arts access for people with visual impairments.

Exhibited: October 2016 at 9 evenings 2 in Seattle

Keith Salmon is a critically acclaimed Scottish Landscape painter with a significant visual impairment. Salmon draws inspiration from hiking through the iconic Scottish landscape, capturing in memory the qualities of light, shape and color that his eyes allow him to see. His painted depictions of the wild Scottish landscape are fantastically atmospheric abstractions of shape, line and color that defy traditional definitions landscape painting. Undaunted by his declining vision, Salmon began exploring sound as another medium where he can work, building a catalog of audio files on his travels around Scotland.

Artist Keith Salmon in front of his paintings of Hells Canyon in “The Oregon Project”

In the Summer of 2015, Microsoft Research Intern Kyle Rector and Researchers Neel Joshi and Meredith Ringel Morris created a prototype system to address the challenges of visual arts access for people with visual impairments. The system aids interpretation of visual art through movement and proximity – allowing viewers who are visually impaired to “hear” a painting. In partnership with Seattle filmmaker Dan Thornton and Microsoft Research, Salmon is using this platform to create this new installation.

Microsoft researcher Neel Joshi works on the Kinect-enabled sound system of “The Oregon Project.”

This work is supported by the Microsoft Corporation in collaboration with the Josephy Center of Arts and Culture in Oregon. At the Josephy Center this past summer, Salmon created his first American landscape exploration: a series of large format drawings and recordings that form the basis of this work at 9e2.