A newly designed vibrating, audio-tactile device chair will be offered to deaf members of the audience at the forthcoming Orchestra London Christmas Concert in Canada.
The Emoti-Chair, which was developed in conjunction with Ryerson University’s Inclusive Media and Design Centre, works by picking up sounds with a microphone, running them through an amplifier and transforming them into vibrations.
Local media artist, David Bobier, helped to develop the chair. He said: “It’s a new way of experiencing sound. It allows the deaf to experience sound through vibration.”
He added that the technology can recreate a wide range of sounds, by running the vibrations along the audience member’s back. The chairs can reproduce frequencies ranging from about 100 hertz to 10,000 hertz.
“Typically, deaf people are more sensitive to tactile vibrations,” said Bobier. “And the skin is the membrane for receiving the impulses.”
The chairs will be provided for about a dozen spectators with hearing loss at A Christmas Carol, on December 11th. The event will raise funds for the local Unity Project homeless agency.
“This is certainly the most sophisticated design that I’m aware of, in terms of the range of frequency and the versatility within the software,” says Bobier. “And the applications are wide-ranging.”
Bobier founded VibraFusionLab, a collective focusing on multi-sensory art, after being inspired by his two deaf children.
“That was the initial connection,” he says. “When they were young, if we were out somewhere and there was music, they’d put their hands on the speaker. As an artist, that had a huge impact on my work . . . and I started thinking how do we create a more inclusive experience for an audience and allow deaf people to appreciate and enjoy, say, Orchestra London.”
The Christmas concert will be the first large-scale use of the chairs, valued at between $7,000 and $10,000 each, but Bonier has hopes for further development in the future.
by Emily Howlett
Read the original article here.
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M Wiliams
November 29, 2013
I recalled this was tested in the UK some years back and I was told they had Evelyn Glennie to try this out. Sounds interesting…..I know because I ask to try it out and they had a list of people to choose from and I wasn’t lucky to be picked. Ah well… one must wait…..It would be good to hear of some feedback from those that had tried it would it?
Marie Watkins
November 29, 2013
Are the chairs designed to only pick up the orchestra or any noise? it would be interesting after everyone else has finished clapping and a small group of people look like they have just got off the worlds scariest rollercoaster.
Andy. Not him, me.
November 29, 2013
I made a device of my own years ago. I bought a large heavy duty 15 inch woofer from a car audio shop. I connected this up to a 400W RMS car amplifier and that was driven by the car radio which had a built in 45W pre-amp. So what I ended up with was incredibly deep bass that not only vibrated the seats in front of it, it vibrated the whole car. In fact it was a real filling rattler at high volume and I would imagine would damage hearing.
I didn’t think it was all that great and although I still have it in the car I just use it on the radio at normal volume.
Deafnotdaft
November 29, 2013
Brilliant!
There’s a whole new industry here. What we need now is for deaf composers to write soundless “music” specifically for deaf audiences to appreciate on these magic chairs. And then we need some kind of media that deaf people can use to download this music and play on their chairs.
Looks like a nice business opportunity for some creative entrepeneur.
And we need a new brand-name. “Emoti-chair” is really naff. Howzabout the “Hippy Hippy Shake”?
JK
November 29, 2013
The Emoti-Chair allows Deaf people to appreciate orchestral music through vibrations? That’s as misguided as expecting blind people to appreciate an oil painting by touching the canvas. As Deafnotdaft suggests, specially-composed tactile music is the way forward.
Sensorineural Blues
November 29, 2013
Many moons ago, before I became deaf, I went to see the Who at my local theatre. Before the show was due to start I was in the bar nursing my pint when this minor earthquake struck. Ripples were forming on the surface of my drink – a bit like that famous scene in Jurassic Park where the t rex makes ripples on the puddle as it approaches. Well it was John Entwistle’s bass guitar as he played the Substitute riff. They’d started early.
This was a visual manifestation of music, let alone tactile. I feel sure it must be possible to harness these “good vibrations” and make them meaningful (and even entertaining) to deaf folk.
By the way, no wonder Entwistle went deaf……
Media Art Bangladesh
December 3, 2013
very very nice.