Touch: See: Hear is a multi-sensory installation for learning disabled adults.
It is the focus of a 13-week, full-time, collaborative project (supported by an AHRC Cultural Engagement Fellowship) between Lewis Sykes, MIRIAD, Manchester School of Art and the Level Centre, a custom-designed multimedia arts space for learning disabled adults in Rowsley, Derbyshire, UK, early February-May 2016.
This online journal documents the emerging and iterative design process.
The Level Centre and Creative Technologies
While the Level Centre has a wealth of experience and expertise in ‘guided’ creative activities, they also have a remit to develop digital tools that enable users to connect with their environment through ‘autonomous’ multimedia and creative technologies. Accordingly, they’ve recently initiated the ‘Inter-ACT + Re-ACT’ programme – simple, interactive installations (a current example is a digital ‘hall of mirrors’) that engage people through their journey around the building. No instructions are given and staff just observe the level of reaction and engagement to try and work out who does what and why.
This project responds to key questions raised through this emerging strand of activity – “How might learning disabled adults engage with playful multimedia and multi-sensory environments embedded into the fabric of the space?” and “What unique benefits might this type of activity realise?”
About Touch: See: Hear
Building upon but extending a postgraduate Practice as Research study exploring the interplay between sound and image within ‘Visual Music’, this project aims to prototype a bespoke, multi-sensory, interactive, digital art installation specifically for Level Centre users.
‘Played’ via a minimal, glowing, football sized-sphere – actually a custom-made, positional and touch-sensitive, haptic (vibrational) controller – turning, twisting, shaking and moving the sphere and touching different areas on its surface will create a direct and live link to sound and moving images as well as haptic feedback. More than just an immersive multi-sensory experience, this is a distinct art work with a purpose – a tool for individual audiovisual composition.
The work will likely be located in the centre’s main media space – a large square room with a central dome equipped with video projection on four walls, sound, lighting and data services.
