TV Riddles - a practice as research experiment in visual and oral ambiguity.

Abstract

The Anglo-Saxons made riddles about objects and thoughts such as 'sword', 'ice, or 'plough' , teasing the reader and ending with the object asking us to guess "who am I?" St. Aldhelm, the Saxon Bishop of Sherborne was one of the best known writers of riddles. These short films are a twenty-first century updating of the idea in which images are combined with words written by a leading poet, Professor Sean Street, containing clues to an object we are all familiar with. The films test audience engagement and perception of ambiguity in relation to the spoken word, the visual images and the sound design, to ascertain how we respond to clues. This has a useful application in understanding how we make sense of ambiguity through word, sound and image.