Good vibrations concert for deaf people
p2pnet news view Music | Cool:- Now this is cool.
And useful.
And, well, great!
It’s a concert for deaf people, or people with serious hearing problems. And people interested in leading edge music technology.
And it’s a(nother) Canadian first.
“Imagine never being able to hear music clearly your entire life,” says Sarah Hayward on the Ryerson Center for Learning Technologies site, going on »»»
Now imagine changing all that by simply sitting in a chair. The Emoti-Chair is a cross-modal, audio-tactile display chair that allows deaf or hard of hearing people to feel the vibrations of music and sound. Created by two Ryerson professors and their associates, the Emoti-Chair is currently on display until Jan. 15, 2009 at the Ontario Science Centre as part of the special exhibition, On Thin Ice: Youth Respond to International Polar Year.
The Emoti-Chair is an interdisciplinary project developed by Deborah Fels, Director of the Centre for Learning Technologies (CLT) and Associate Professor at the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management; Frank Russo, Director of the Science of Music, Auditory Research and Technology (SMART) lab and Assistant Professor in Ryerson’s Department of Psychology; Ted Rogers School of Management postdoctoral fellow Maria Karam; and Dr. Fels’ associate, independent artist, Graham Smith. The chair is part of Ryerson’s Alternative Sensory Information Display (ASID), a project geared towards exploring alternative methods for presenting sensory information to users who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Now the Emoti-Chair is The star attraction at Clinton’s Tavern on Blo
or Street in Toronto on March 5 in a concert featuring nothing but good vibrations.
Ellen Hibbard, a PhD candidate in Ryerson’s Communications and Culture program who researches at the CLT, says the chair helps deaf people understand why other people are emotionally moved by music, says Sarah, quoting Ellen as saying:
“The first time I used the chair, I was blown away by the amount of information I could get about music from the vibrations.
“For the first time in my life, I could feel sad or happy because of how the music vibrations felt on my skin. I never felt those kinds of feelings before when music was played. It was how the chair ‘played’ the music that enabled me to have a shared experience with people who are emotionally moved by listening to music.”
Open captioning, interpreters and music visualisation will also be available at the concert, and people wil be able to test-drive the Emoti-Chair.
The pic in the upper right was taken by the Toronto Star’s Colin McConnell. It has Deborah Fels being turned on by the Emoti-Chair’s musical translation of Carmen with Branje playing drums and Maria Karam on keyboard.
February , 2009
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February 7th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Cool indeed! And you don’t even need to play on key?
February 7th, 2009 at 12:15 am
It’s nice to see more devices and technologies for people with special needs applied toward the experience of music. This reminds in a way of a baritone student that had a special pneumatic actuator created so that he could play in the school band like a normal kid:
http://www.musicedmagic.com/blogtales-from-the-podium/video–assistive-technology-for-band-students.html