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dailygleaner.com - Musical frequencies turned into tactile sensations for deaf in 'emoti-chair'
For Ellen Hibbard music has never really meant very much.
Deaf from birth, she would only be able to experience a tune by placing her hands on a flat wooden surface near the stereo or radio, or directly on the amplifier.
But now that's all changed. And for the first time she has an understanding of why people love music - be it rock and roll, jazz or classical.
Hibbard has tested an experimental "emoti-chair," which with the help of a computer translates music into a series of tactile sensations, including rocking and vibrating.
Think of it as a kind of full-body vibrator triggered by the frequency of individual notes in a musical composition or even random sounds.
From the very first time Hibbard sat in the chair she was overwhelmed by the sensations and vibrations her body felt.
"I grew up in an environment of hearing people who had a relationship with sound and emotions that I never fully could understand because I could not experience it first-hand," she said.
But the chair has revealed a whole new world to her. It was like "feeling the emotions (of the music) dance across my skin," said the 35-year-old PhD student who is in the communications and culture program at Ryerson University and is doing research of her own in the lab where the chair was designed.
Conceived and designed by a team at Ryerson University's Centre for Learning Technologies and a Canada Council artist, the "emoti-chair" is just in the experimental stage, but its developers hope that it will have practical applications - perhaps one day being used at the movies or rock concerts.
A version of the chair will be part of an exhibition in the Ideas Gallery at the Ontario Science Centre beginning this September.
The way the human cochlea interprets the frequencies of sound has been mapped out on the back of the chair, said Maria Karam, a post-doctoral student on the project.
But instead of hearing the sound, the frequencies are translated by a computer into a physical response like a vibration or rocking or a blast of air on your face.
For Ellen Hibbard music has never really meant very much.
Deaf from birth, she would only be able to experience a tune by placing her hands on a flat wooden surface near the stereo or radio, or directly on the amplifier.
But now that's all changed. And for the first time she has an understanding of why people love music - be it rock and roll, jazz or classical.
Hibbard has tested an experimental "emoti-chair," which with the help of a computer translates music into a series of tactile sensations, including rocking and vibrating.
Think of it as a kind of full-body vibrator triggered by the frequency of individual notes in a musical composition or even random sounds.
From the very first time Hibbard sat in the chair she was overwhelmed by the sensations and vibrations her body felt.
"I grew up in an environment of hearing people who had a relationship with sound and emotions that I never fully could understand because I could not experience it first-hand," she said.
But the chair has revealed a whole new world to her. It was like "feeling the emotions (of the music) dance across my skin," said the 35-year-old PhD student who is in the communications and culture program at Ryerson University and is doing research of her own in the lab where the chair was designed.
Conceived and designed by a team at Ryerson University's Centre for Learning Technologies and a Canada Council artist, the "emoti-chair" is just in the experimental stage, but its developers hope that it will have practical applications - perhaps one day being used at the movies or rock concerts.
A version of the chair will be part of an exhibition in the Ideas Gallery at the Ontario Science Centre beginning this September.
The way the human cochlea interprets the frequencies of sound has been mapped out on the back of the chair, said Maria Karam, a post-doctoral student on the project.
But instead of hearing the sound, the frequencies are translated by a computer into a physical response like a vibration or rocking or a blast of air on your face.
