Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios.
The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s SoundShirts use “patterns and pulses” to make opera more accessible for the deaf.
It used to be that, for people with a disability, there were certain experiences they knew they would probably never access. With technology, that is changing. Consider how “feeling” the music in new, more subtle ways is helping those with hearing loss.
Michael Andor Brodeur reports at the Washington Post about the SoundShirt.
“Opera is everything all at once: music and drama, poetry and dance, grandeur and intimacy, spectacle and sound. This all-encompassing aspect makes it one of the most accessible art forms yet one of the most challenging to make accessible.
“For audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who are blind or have low vision, attending an opera can be a deeply frustrating experience.
“A pilot program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is trying on a new approach for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to experience opera: the SoundShirt, a jacketlike garment equipped with 16 haptic actuators* that transmit sound from the orchestra and stage into pulses, vibrations and other forms of haptic feedback in the shirt itself. …
“In addition to accommodations for mobility disabilities such as ramps and wheelchair seating, like many opera houses, the Lyric offers performances with American Sign Language interpretation, projected subtitles, and assisted listening devices for deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons. For blind people and those with low vision, the Lyric provides Braille and large-print programs, audio-described performances, high-powered glasses and pre-performance ‘touch tours,’ allowing audience members to feel various props, costumes and surfaces before the curtain rises.
“The SoundShirt, though, is cut from a different cloth than most accessibility technology, providing a mediated experience of the music that registers as physical and personal.
‘It doesn’t re-create the experience of listening to music,’ [director of digital initiatives Brad Dunn] says. ‘It’s its own thing.’
” ‘It translates the music into a different sensory experience that can be felt by people. And what I’ve seen through all of the early testing that we did is that audiences who are deaf or hard of hearing have responded very viscerally to it.’ …
“For attendees at a Lyric production of West Side Story earlier this year, input from the SoundShirt didn’t just help provide additional detail to the performance — it also illuminated the musical spaces in between, the interludes and interstitial passages of music, the overtures overloaded with crucial cues. Dunn recalls one tester’s eyes welling up with tears after the performance. …
“Lyric’s SoundShirt project was launched in partnership with the city of Chicago’s Mayor’s Office for People With Disabilities (MOPD), but the garment itself was designed by CuteCircuit, a London-based wearable technology design firm. …
“At the Lyric, an array of microphones positioned over various sections of the orchestra feeds audio information to a central computer. Dunn and his crew adapt the software to respond to the specific instrumentation of a given piece. … Those audio signals are divided across seven channels, each mapped to one of 16 different ‘zones’ on the SoundShirt, where motifs and melodies register as patterns and pulses across the garment’s 16 actuators.
“Thus, for a production of The Flying Dutchman, the violins and cellos are assigned to trigger haptic feedback along the right and left shoulders and upper arms. Timpani and bass, meanwhile, are sent down to the lower torso and hips. Wagner’s mighty horns are split across the upper arms like goose bumps, while vocals register at the wrists like a pulse. …
“Rachel Arfa is a longtime disability advocate and civil rights attorney who serves as commissioner of MOPD. As a deaf person who wears bilateral cochlear implants, the issue of accessibility has been close to her heart for a long time. … But while expanding accessibility is her life’s work, Arfa also knows that good intentions can often pave the road to nowhere.
“ ‘When Lyric approached me with this shirt, I was highly skeptical,’ Arfa said via email. [But she] agreed to test the SoundShirt at a recent Lyric production of West Side Story. Arfa was surprised to find the shirt actually felt like a good fit for the problem it is trying to solve. …
“ ‘I began to understand that the haptics on the SoundShirt vibrated in conjunction with the orchestra sounds. One example is when string instruments were played, the haptics followed the pitch and rhythm. A second example is when a singer was singing a long melody, the haptics picked up on this and I could experience this through the vibration. I am not able to hear this sound, but I could feel it. It was such a surprise and a thrill.’
“Tina Childress, an audiologist who lives in Champaign, Ill., is a late-deafened adult who wears cochlear implants and works as an advocate for accessibility in the arts. … Childress appreciated the haptic feedback at the wrists to indicate dialogue, and the way the shirt clarified the various elements of the score. After intermission, she lent the shirt to another audience member to try out. ‘I didn’t realize how much I was using it until I didn’t have it.’ ”
More at the Post, here. Axios Chicago has still more, here.
* haptic actuators are gizmos that provide localized bodily sensations and tactile effects
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