Adam Parkinson

Haptic Wave: A Cross-Modal Interface for Visually Impaired Audio Producers

We present the Haptic Wave, a device that allows cross-modal mapping of digital audio to the haptic domain, intended for use by audio producers/engineers with visual impairments. We describe a series of participatory design activities adapted to non-sighted users where the act of prototyping facilitates dialog. A series of workshops scoping user needs, and testing a technology mock up and lo-fidelity prototype fed into the design of a final high-spec prototype. The Haptic Wave was tested in the laboratory, then deployed in real world settings in recording studios and audio production facilities. The cross-modal mapping is kinesthetic and allows the direct manipulation of sound without the translation of an existing visual interface. The research gleans insight into working with users with visual impairments, and transforms perspective to think of them as experts in non-visual interfaces for all users.

Audio-haptic interfaces for digital audio workstations

We examine how auditory displays, sonification and haptic interaction design can support visually impaired sound engineers, musicians and audio production specialists access to digital audio workstation. We describe a user-centred approach that incorporates various participatory design techniques to help make the design process accessible to this population of users. We also outline the audio-haptic designs that results from this process and reflect on the benefits and challenges that we encountered when applying these techniques in the context of designing support for audio editing.

Workshopping Participation in Music

This paper presents a process-based approach to considering workshops as a route to participation in collective creative musical practice. We evoke the notion of the Music One Participates In, which focuses on a shift from the listener-as-consumer to participant-actor actively engaged in sound perception and production. We look at the range of different methods that make up the term ‘workshop’, as well as emergent relationships between facilitator and participant in creative do-it-yourself activities to frame our discussion of participatory music practice. We then examine the nature of participation across a range of disciplines from social and cognitive science through human computer interaction to radical and contemporary art, and identify possible contradictions in horizontal utopian organisational models. With this conceptual frame as a backdrop, we present four types of workshop that we have conducted across time at different sites with diverse groups of participants. We apply concepts from the participation literature to analyse our music workshops, and attempt to reconcile the potentially diverging agendas of facilitator and participant to arrive at a process-based view of ‘workshopping’.

Making Data Sing: Embodied Approaches to Sonification

We report on our experiences of two recent sonification pieces we have been involved in; composing for Peter Sinclair’s RoadMusic project, and creating a multi-speaker installation with sound artist Kaffe Matthews which sonifies the movement of sharks around the Galapagos islands.