Chicago Sun-Times: The conductor steps to the podium and raises his baton in the darkened theater.
The flutter of flutes. The quiver of strings. And then you feel something tingling, vibrating about your shoulders — almost as though a pair of bees have somehow found their way into the theater and under your clothing.
It’s not an unpleasant sensation — just odd, very odd.
10 comments:
This story and technology is absolutely incredible. The deaf community have long had to make do with supertitles and whatever their eyes can see to enjoy opera. This Sound Shirt brings an entirely new experience to a community that otherwise can not get the full enjoyment out of a performance. I have always appreciated sign language interpreters, especially those at musical events, and they are invaluable to continuing the accessibility of these performances, but there is always a physical aspect to a live musical event that is triggered by an emotional response to the music. The Sound Shirt will hopefully provide that to anyone who uses it, even if it is different. The story makes me think of Beethoven, who, once deaf, would lay his ear to the wooden floors of his apartment or house to feel the vibrations from his piano. I hope this technology eventually becomes a world-wide norm.
I thought this article was interesting. I am someone who is fluent in ASL and has spent a good amount of time interacting with the deaf community. That is why I clicked on the article. I think that we need to take steps to make theatre more accessible to the deaf community and I love seeing new innovations that are created to do that. There might be a lack of understanding on my end but I am not entirely sure I understand the intentions behind the shirt. I don’t know if I fully understand what it would do and the effect it is trying to create. However, I think the most important comment in this was the comment that states that this goes best when paired with ASL interpretation. I think these shirts are practically useless if not being paired with interpreters. However, when the interpreters are there it sounds like it could be a valuable tool. I am curious about the price and if theatres would be willing to invest into them or if they would be overlooked due to the price.
I always enjoy reading about new kinds of technology in the theater, especially ones that are able to improve the theatrical experience for a wider group of people. I think the technology here is fascinating and it is very cool to see how sounds that hearing people can experience are translated so that deaf people can experience them. The distinction that the article made with the sentence "we can’t possibly recreate music for somebody who can’t hear music, but what we can do is create an analog experience that is just meant to be its own thing that enhances the rest of the experience.” Deaf people will unfortunately not be able to experience theater in the same way as people who are not deaf, but instead, the focus can be put on an alternate experience that is very different, but still enjoyable. Not all forms of accessibility are able to be (or need to be) aimed at creating a direct copy of the original, but instead, as shown here, can create something new and great for many people.
In 2023 I always find myself involved in conversations that revolve around inclusivity. But the final wall we always breach (especially within theater) is that the activities we usually indulge in can often naturally be exclusive. How can someone who is deaf truly enjoy the music of a musical, or even a play? When I saw this article that said “sound shirt”, I was intrigued. While I think it is clearly a new technology that hasn’t really been put to the test by large audiences. I think its a good step and a good idea towards the future. I think that it will be interesting to see how perceptive hearing impaired people are to a vibrating shirt filled with sensors. I am curious to see if people in general will find it comfortable and if those vibrating sensations actually elevate their experience of a performance. Besides the fact that they run for 1,500 dollars i think this story is an new piece of tech that could make shows (specifically with music in them) more accessible.
Accessibility has been a hot topic in the industry for the past few years, and to see Lyric Opera implementing the SoundShirt is such a big milestone for everyone. The article very briefly touched upon the technology and design behind the shirt and simplified it so the readers could understand, but I believe the details behind involve much more complicated fabrication and experimentation. Although the shirt costs about $1500, I think it is a valuable investment for the community. I wonder how the Lyric Opera dry-cleans the shirt every time it’s worn. Surely there must be a special way, especially with all the sensors embedded within them. Another thing that the article mentioned that surprised me was positioning the hearing-impaired audience in seats where the conductor is visible. It makes me think about the design of the stage too – sometimes we have the orchestra all the way upstage and sometimes they are in the pit; sometimes the entire orchestra is masked and hidden. Obviously, the scenic designers and directors design with an intention in mind, but it makes me think about what it means for hearing-impaired audiences when the conductor is completely masked.
I have a deep appreciation and fascination about deaf culture and how they live their lives in comparison to a hearing person. I took two years of American Sign Language at my school, and while I learned how to have conversations, I also learned a lot about HOH and Deaf culture. I think it is so important to do what the Lyric Opera is doing and to not only make theater and art accessible, but an enhanced experience to people that have sensory differences. I think it is always extremely interesting watching and listening to deaf musicians, and many of them say that they listen to the vibrations of the music. So, I think this technology took the sentiment and methodologies that current deaf people were using and allowed that format to be more available to them in bigger performance venues. I am excited to see where this goes and I hope more theaters adopt and create technology like this in the future.
This is really cool. And it’s not too crazy, the article does acknowledge that it’s not exactly possible to recreate music for someone who can’t hear it, which I agree with, but music does have a lot of feeling to it, and the concept of recreating that feeling makes a lot of sense to me. While I’ve never experienced the Soundshirt, I can totally imagine what that might be like. Accessibility at performances and making productions more accessible is something that I have increasingly heard a lot about in the past couple of years, and I think that the development of this shirt is a really awesome way to continue to expand accessibility for more people to see productions. Every type of production engages so many of the senses, and going to the opera is so much more than just hearing the music. I can’t wait to see how this technology develops and hopefully spreads to more locations since it is such an awesome way to expand the experience of seeing live productions.
This was so amazing to read about. Just to think about how you would go about creating that experience, how would you put sound into a tangible feeling? And yet at the same time music can be incredibly tangible or at least visceral, one of my favorite things about concerts is how you can feel the vibrations of the music in your body. I also like the fact that they acknowledged how it’s also it’s own thing, it’s own experience, not exactly recreating hearing but creating a new super cool experience that “enhances the rest of the experience.” It’s also great that the opera supported this idea and helped fund it, as it is ambitious and I assume difficult to produce, but could have such an incredible impact, and make the opera such a more impactful experience for those who are hearing-impaired. I also wonder if the feelings that one feels (via the shirt) per instrument would been different if someone else programmed it. Experiencing music can be both so universal but also an especially singular and unique experience depending on the person, and so I feel like someone could hear a singer belt a note and feel it in their stomach, while someone else could feel it as if your brain is tingling. And so if someone else created this piece, would the different responses elicited per musical sound be varied? It’s fascinating to think about.
I really love this idea. Any technology to translate art across sensory inputs is incredibly interesting to me, and it has a lot of applications not just for deaf and hard of hearing, but also for other cross-sensory exhibitions; I can easily imagine something akin to this technology being used at an immersive art exhibit such as at the mattress factory here in Pittsburgh. My dad used to teach at a school for the deaf and hard of hearing, and this article reminded me of this one story he told me about a child who learned to play the guitar from the vibrations of the body of the wood against his chest. Another example is from a commercial I can’t find in which sounds are translated into a light show. I think theres a lot of very cool applications to make theatre more accessible. At one theatre I worked at, they had interpreters for ASL following the performers onstage, and I think that was a very cool use of translation that added to my experience of the show as a hearing person. I’m very curious about how this show was tech’d, and wonder if there needed to be certain presets that someone controlled, or if it was simply a live feed of the microphones translated into vibrational motion. I think that it should probably be cue based, as someone could create much more interesting sensations and experiences using a cue based system, such as a vibration traveling from the hand to the chest as the orchestra drops in pitch.
Overarchingly, reading about the invention of the soundshirt made me very hopeful about the future of accessibility in theater. While there are still many accessibility barriers with the soundshirt, as it is only available in two sizes and at one performance for each production, it is a step in the right direction for our industry that has a problem with inaccessibility. One quote that stood out to me was by Dunn was “We can’t possibly recreate music for somebody who can’t hear music, but what we can do is create an analog experience that is just meant to be its own thing that enhances the rest of the experience.” I did not consider the difference between attempting to achieve an analog vs mirrored experience, but now understand how analog experience to hearing is the best option in this situation. Attempting to recreate hearing and a mirrored experience is not a possibility, but that does not mean that alternative solutions should not be explored. Overall, I think the Sound shirt is super cool, and while logistically difficult, could shake up the arts scene for the best.
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