Photo: Lanna Apisukh for NPR.
Concertgoers dancing at the Silent Disco dance party at Lincoln Center, New York City, on Saturday, July 1, 2023. “Haptic” suits designed for the deaf community were provided by Music: Not Impossible.
Of the many interesting kinds of jobs in the world, I bet you never heard of this one: “Chief Vibrational officer”! Jennifer Vanasco explains at National Public Radio (NPR).
“When Daniel Belquer was first asked to join a team to make a better live music experience for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, he was struck by how they had developed work-arounds to enjoy concerts.
” ‘What they were doing at the time was holding balloons to feel the vibrations through their fingers, or go barefoot and flip the speakers facing the floor,’ Belquer said.
“He thought the team could make something to help hard-of-hearing people enjoy live music even more with the technology now available. …
“Belquer, who is also a musician and theater artist, is now the ‘Chief Vibrational Officer’ of Music: Not Impossible, an off-shoot of Not Impossible Labs, which uses new technology to address social issues like poverty and disability access. …
“His team started by strapping vibrating cell phone motors to bodies, but that didn’t quite work. The vibrations were all the same. Eventually, they worked with engineers at the electronic components company Avnet to develop a light haptic [3D touch] suit with a total of 24 actuators, or vibrating plates. There’s 20 of them studded on a vest that fits tightly around the body like a hiking backpack, plus an actuator that straps onto each wrist and ankle.
“When you wear the suit, it’s surprising how much texture the sensations have. It can feel like raindrops on your shoulders, a tickle across the ribs, a thump against the lower back.
It doesn’t replicate the music — it’s not as simple as regular taps to the beat. It plays waves of sensation on your skin in a way that’s complementary to the music.
“The vibrations are mixed by a haptic DJ who controls the location, frequency and intensity of feeling across the suits, just as a music DJ mixes sounds in an artful way.
“The evening’s haptic DJ was Paddy Hanlon, co-founder of Music: Not Impossible. ‘What we’re doing is taking the feed from the DJ, and we can select and mix what we want and send it to different parts of the body,’ he said. ‘So, I’ll kind of hone in on, like, the bass element and I’ll send that out, and then the high hats and the snare.’
“The haptic suits were just one component of the event, which was celebrating Disability Pride Month as part of Lincoln Center’s annual Summer for the City festival. There were American Sign Language interpreters; the music was captioned on a screen on the stage; there was audio description for those who were blind, and there were chairs to sit in. There’s also a chill-out space with noise-reducing headphones, earplugs and fidgets for those who feel overstimulated. Because it’s a silent disco — meaning you can only hear the music through headphones — attendees could adjust the sound. …
“The suits are the star attraction. Lily Lipman, who has auditory processing disorder, glowed when asked about her experience.
” ‘It’s cool, because I’m never quite sure if I’m hearing what other people are hearing, so it’s amazing to get those subtleties in my body.’
“Said Kevin Gotkin, one of the evening’s DJs and the curator of disability artistry events at Lincoln Center, ‘This is a chance for us to be together and experience access that’s integrated into a party artistically and not as, like, a compliance thing. … Disability is the center of the party.’ “
More at NPR, here. No paywall.
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