How does one play the trumpet when he or she has no arms to hold it? How
does one paint when he or she is paralyzed? Methods for overcoming such
obstacles that confront mobility-impaired people will be the focus of a
conference at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute today.
“A lot of current technology for disabled people focuses on addressing everyday needs like working, eating, moving about the house,” said event organizer and RPI professor Jonas Braasch, in a statement. “That's important, but it's also important that people with special needs have access to an outlet for their creativity. We are working to give people the ability to express themselves creatively.”
The International Symposium on Assistive Technology for Music and Art (ISATMA 2013) will cover the current state of arts technology for people with spinal cord injuries and similar serious mobility impairments. Through talks, demonstrations and presentations, the symposium will then address future trends and possibilities for new technologies — such as workstations that allow people with disabilities to interface with computers and create music and art, or ways to allow people with a variety of different mobility impairments to collaborate creatively.
“Because [people with special needs] do things in a very new way, they can help you to leave the beaten path of how we ordinarily do things,” said Braasch. “It might open your eyes to understanding things that you haven’t seen because you're boxed in by your own experience.”
Guest artist David Whalen, a resident of Glenville, has traveled well off the beaten path and developed a new method for interfacing with a computer. After a ski accident in 1981, Whalen became a quadriplegic and no longer had the ability to create music as he had before his accident. In response, he eventually developed the Jamboxx, a tool created to allow people with mobility impairments to create music and digital drawings through breath and head movements. The device uses the ProSuite software created by 1st Playable Productions of Troy. Whalen was looking to market Jamboxx to able-bodied as a hands-free device—it can also be used to control a cursor or even play computer games—through a KickStarter.com campaign, but was unable to achieve the necessary funding.
Whalen developed the concept for Jamboxx out of discussions with Ruud Van der Wel, a physical therapist living and working in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Wel, a guest artist at the symposium, worked extensively with the Magic Flute, an electronic wind instrument that can be played without the use of hands. As the artist blows into the instrument he or she produces sound and can increase volume by blowing harder. The note played while blowing is selected by tilting the tripod-mounted instrument up and down.
“This conference is going to feature artists from Europe and the United States, and others will be present via Skype,” noted Pauline Oliveros, a musician and professor of arts at RPI. “This is because David [Whalen] has this network of people that are paralyzed or have paraplegia who communicate.”
Oliveros is the director of the Deep Listening Institute, an organization advocating a broad philosophy that encourages creative innovation within music, literature, art, technology, and healing. Oliveros, through her classes at RPI, has developed a program called the Adaptive Use Physical Instrument, enabling people with serious disabilities to improvise music. She is now in the process of porting the program to mobile platforms for use on smartphones and similar devices.
“People with special needs often use a creative approach to accomplish their goals and we can learn from them,” said Braasch. He hopes today’s conference will serve to foster relationships between people with disabilities, artists, and designers — many of whom are one and the same as those they are designing for — in the effort to allow all people, regardless of ability, to engage in creative endeavors.
The conference will take place on the RPI campus today from noon to 5 p.m. in Studio 2 of the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). It is free and open to the public.
The DLI will be hosting the conference alongside the RPI Center for Cognition, Communication and Culture, an organization directed by Braasch. The event is being sponsored by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and RPI.
“A lot of current technology for disabled people focuses on addressing everyday needs like working, eating, moving about the house,” said event organizer and RPI professor Jonas Braasch, in a statement. “That's important, but it's also important that people with special needs have access to an outlet for their creativity. We are working to give people the ability to express themselves creatively.”
The International Symposium on Assistive Technology for Music and Art (ISATMA 2013) will cover the current state of arts technology for people with spinal cord injuries and similar serious mobility impairments. Through talks, demonstrations and presentations, the symposium will then address future trends and possibilities for new technologies — such as workstations that allow people with disabilities to interface with computers and create music and art, or ways to allow people with a variety of different mobility impairments to collaborate creatively.
“Because [people with special needs] do things in a very new way, they can help you to leave the beaten path of how we ordinarily do things,” said Braasch. “It might open your eyes to understanding things that you haven’t seen because you're boxed in by your own experience.”
Guest artist David Whalen, a resident of Glenville, has traveled well off the beaten path and developed a new method for interfacing with a computer. After a ski accident in 1981, Whalen became a quadriplegic and no longer had the ability to create music as he had before his accident. In response, he eventually developed the Jamboxx, a tool created to allow people with mobility impairments to create music and digital drawings through breath and head movements. The device uses the ProSuite software created by 1st Playable Productions of Troy. Whalen was looking to market Jamboxx to able-bodied as a hands-free device—it can also be used to control a cursor or even play computer games—through a KickStarter.com campaign, but was unable to achieve the necessary funding.
Whalen developed the concept for Jamboxx out of discussions with Ruud Van der Wel, a physical therapist living and working in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Wel, a guest artist at the symposium, worked extensively with the Magic Flute, an electronic wind instrument that can be played without the use of hands. As the artist blows into the instrument he or she produces sound and can increase volume by blowing harder. The note played while blowing is selected by tilting the tripod-mounted instrument up and down.
“This conference is going to feature artists from Europe and the United States, and others will be present via Skype,” noted Pauline Oliveros, a musician and professor of arts at RPI. “This is because David [Whalen] has this network of people that are paralyzed or have paraplegia who communicate.”
Oliveros is the director of the Deep Listening Institute, an organization advocating a broad philosophy that encourages creative innovation within music, literature, art, technology, and healing. Oliveros, through her classes at RPI, has developed a program called the Adaptive Use Physical Instrument, enabling people with serious disabilities to improvise music. She is now in the process of porting the program to mobile platforms for use on smartphones and similar devices.
“People with special needs often use a creative approach to accomplish their goals and we can learn from them,” said Braasch. He hopes today’s conference will serve to foster relationships between people with disabilities, artists, and designers — many of whom are one and the same as those they are designing for — in the effort to allow all people, regardless of ability, to engage in creative endeavors.
The conference will take place on the RPI campus today from noon to 5 p.m. in Studio 2 of the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). It is free and open to the public.
The DLI will be hosting the conference alongside the RPI Center for Cognition, Communication and Culture, an organization directed by Braasch. The event is being sponsored by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and RPI.
Source : The Record , 8th June 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment