MUSIC 

Photos Courtesy of: Zappos + Avnet

 

This project is part of Not Impossible Labs.

Press: CNN’s “Tech for Good” featuring Chase Burton + Billboard + Forbes + CNBC

Objective: Inclusivity Across a Spectrum of Hearing Abilities in Live Music

Challenge: Working alongside members of the deaf community, we collaborated to create an increasingly nuances live music experience, elevating it from a one-dimensional wave of vibration to a complex, multifaceted and inclusive experience, while ensuring authentic integration and collaboration with the deaf community.

Role: Project Lead + Producer, Community Outreach, Research Design (I joined this project during its most recent prototyping phase)

Team: Daniel Belquer, Director of Technology; Amber Galloway-Gallego, Deaf Community Advisor; David Putrino, Advisor; Paddy Hanlon, Lead Sound Engineer

Hypotheses: Providing a precise and nuanced vibrational translation of sound onto the skin will create a heightened musical experience for individuals who are deaf and all concertgoers, regardless of their level of hearing.

Process | MVP + Field Test: (after 3 years of R&D with musicians and music lovers, both hearing and deaf, outreach and testing of several prototypes)

MVP: A five-piece wearable that enhances the musical experience for all. It receives a LoRa-transmitted (long range radio frequency), highly precise, vibrational music translation or composition for a 23.1 “surround body” experience: 24 points of vibration. A proprietary software suite supports both a live or pre-composed translation. 

Field Test: During the 2017 Life is Beautiful festival, 200 guests--½ hearing + ½ deaf--dressed in the wearables and attended a live Greta van Fleet show. 

Approach: Across four years, roughly eight prototypes were created and tested with both musicians and concertgoers. Earlier prototypes were activated with 20 deaf guests at a series of small, live shows during SXSW and Lady Gaga’s Dive Bar Tour. Ongoing collaborations with deaf artists provided ongoing feedback, while test activations were carried out at a range of venues big and small.

Objective: Expansion of Inclusivity and Haptics in Arts and as a Creative Expression

Challenge: Create a software suite that is intuitive and accessible to an array of artists in order to advance the role of haptics as an art form and thus inclusivity in art.

Role: Director, Co-creator, Research Lead

Hypotheses: A proprietary software suite will act as a tool for any artist who desires to incorporate haptics into their medium to expand the experience, while making it more inclusive and accessible. The software will allow multimedia artists to explore, discover and create haptic layers that will spur innovation as a new creative tool, drive or enhance programming and push inclusivity in the arts forward. 

Process | MVP + Field Test: 

MVP: 

  • A software suite driven by Max4Live is comprised of 12 specialized modules that support four creation methods--haptic design as lead creative driver, haptic design to complement audio or visual content, automated or simple haptic design that reacts to streamed audio files or a hybrid.

  • A five-piece wearable that receives a LoRa-transmitted (long range radio frequency), highly precise, vibrational music translation or composition for a 23.1 “surround body” experience: 24 points of vibration. 

Field Test: An inaugural Creator Network that includes an immersive workshop of 1-15 individual artists and collaborative teams of artists who then showcase the resulting haptic, multimedia programming at a culminating showcase that celebrates and expands haptics and inclusivity in the arts.

Approach: Worked with beta testing artists—deaf and hearing—for two months, collecting feedback through open dialogue, interviews and surveys. A pilot workshop was carried out with five artists. All feedback was implemented into the software and supporting materials.

Learnings: In progress

Below videos produced by Not Impossible Labs.