Scenes of daily life in Europe
	Presentation of the activity    Objectives and duration of the project  Visit the site Louvre.edu for the blind and partially sighted How to manage : see and download pages
Collective creation of an on-line service accessible to the blind and partially sighted Thème To set up a site which can portray daily life in Europe with sensitivity, humour, etc. Cross-cultural views on a Europe marked by globalisation but which does, however, still retain the characteristics of each individual country, each culture… all of which must be emphasised. Public Pupils aged between 7 and 13. Procedures Each pupil or group of pupils will choose one or more scenes representing daily life in their country, or their region. This must be a specific place. These scenes of everyday life will be presented by means of a photograph and by a series of stylised drawings (line drawings, tint blocks), broken down, if necessary, into several components. Blind or partially sighted users of the site can print out these drawings onto heat sensitive paper in order to obtain a tactile approach. Understanding of the scene will be provided by a description and an audio commentary responsible for transmitting the meaning, or for translating the feelings that it may inspire, etc. This audio accompaniment may take any form provided that it is appropriate for what the authors wish to convey (essay, interview, sketch, poem, song, musical composition, etc.). The stylised representation of scenes of daily life may be inspired by the tour for the blind and partially sighted offered by the Louvre museum on its educational site Louvre.edu. The scenes of daily life represented on the Akhethetep mastaba (department of Egyptian antiquities) was chosen for the first on-line service adapted for the visually disabled. There is free access to these scenes on the Louvre museum's educational site at: http://www.louvre.edu.

Un exemple : The Akhetetep orchestra

This scene is located in the lower register, under Akhetetep and the banquet. Four characters are squatting down with one knee on the ground and are facing each other in pairs. They are dressed in a simple loincloth but we can only make out the belt and its tie. The first pair are a harpist and a singer and the second pair, a flautist and another singer. In Pharaonic Egypt, the lords, like the Pharaoh, had their own orchestra to play during meals. Although we still have the words of some of the songs, there was no system of writing down music and so we have no idea what the music was like..

Print out these drawings onto heat sensitive paper in order to obtain a tactile approach.

Objectives - To collaborate in the collective creation of a site on a common them whilst still abiding by certain rules of construction so that this site can be accessed by the blind and partially sighted. - To photograph scenes of daily life and choose one or more representative photographs. - To analyse each photograph so as to break it down into major components; to translate the image and its components into a stylised drawing. - To describe and interpret the photograph or photographs selected. Rules of construction (by Cyrille Gouyette) The student should act as if he was blind and try his best to question how space can be imagined when one is thus handicapped - i.e. depth, background, superimposing, masking, and suppression of elements. A contour brings more information than the use of a flat tint ; a design in relief is better apprehended than a cavity. Some suggestions - Get rid of perspective, bring the action in the foreground like they did in Egyptian pictures. - Objects or illustrations must not overlap but follow each other. They must be shown completely as often as possible. - If a picture is too complicated, it must be split into several ones - element after element - and reunited afterwards in a general scene. - Things must be shown with one viewpoint after selecting the most significant angle - e.g. a table or a glass are best identified in side views ; a plate is best seen from above. - A human figure must be shown in full ( with its head and with its upper and lower limbs) without any foreshortening. - The selected postures should be self-evident (sitting, standing, lying, …) so should the objects handled by characters. - Information should get hierarchical through the use of a different thickness of contour. - Make intelligent use of texture with screening, hatching, and dotted lines (at the most two effects per drawing) - Draw the floor line which helps with spatiality and is a guide-line for reading. - Never hesitate to get rid of superfluous details that could interfere with the understanding of a scene. Finally, try to describe a scene while remembering the fact that the person who is listening to you cannot see it. The order of the narration and the accuracy of the information matter most. Duration of the project This project, initiated during Eschola, will go on until July 2002. Contacts Danièle Valentin, Department of technology, E.mail : daniele.valentin@education.gouv.fr Cyrille Gouyette, Louvre Museum, cultural manager responsable for relationship to special need people E.mail : gouyette@louvre.fr Cyril Patrice, Pagesjaunes Edition - E.mail : cpatrice@pagesjaunes.fr

How to manage Pages are downloadable on the Louvre.edu site, in order to make this collaborative site more coherent. Three pages are available: - one title page on which you may situate the area concerned (country, region, city or village). - one contents page including the list of the concerned scenes. - one page entitled "page1" corresponding to the description of each scene, to ne duplicated in as many copies as needed. To download pages, click here.