IDMIL PhD researcher John Sullivan will present recent haptics research at the EuroHaptics 2016 Workshop “Musical Haptics: use and relevance of haptic feedback in musical practice”. The workshop will take place at July 4, 2016 from 9:15 - 13:15 at Imperial College London, UK.

The workshop, organized by Stefano Papetti (Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland) and Ercan Altinsoy (Institute of Acoustics and Speech Communication, Dresden University of Technology, Germany), will include presentations by Vincent Hayward, Gareth Young, Nicolas Castagné, and Edgar Berdahl.

Abstract: Tactile Augmented Wearables for Delivery of Complex Musical Score Information

John Sullivan, Deborah Egloff, Marcello Giordano, Marcelo M. Wanderley

Tactile augmented wearables have been object of much research in recent years, both in academia and industry, and have been used to convey information such as navigational cues or system notifications. In the music domain, tactile wearables have been used to convey simple musical information to performers, in the form of, for instance, tempo cues or instantaneous feedback about the interaction with a live-electronics system. More complex tactile cues can also be designed. “Musicking the body electric” is a multidisciplinary project aiming at developing a set of tactile augmented garments for professional musicians, and a vocabulary of complex tactile icons (“tactons”) to be used by composers to deliver score information. What are the perceptual limitations of delivering complex, whole-body patterns of vibrations to performing musicians? Can musicians learn to reliably recognize icons and associate them to score elements? What are the best strategies for actuator choice and placement? These research questions are at the core of the “Musicking the body electric” project, and offer a cause for a more general reflection on the many issues to be addressed to evaluate abstract languages of tactile icons delivered by specialized wearable devices.

See the full workshop program here.