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Haptic Development: Radios

One of the original ideas for this project was a wearable haptic object, but that did not get made due to logistic challenges and time limitations. The sonic hack and the spatially designated layers of sound were part of the wishful thinking that didn't really come to realization with the wearable haptic. In the final iteration of the installation, there were wooden radio sets that visitors could touch and "feel" vibrations that were "transcribed" from audio files via transducers attached inside the radio. Helen Keller's story, and the photo of her with her arms on a radio, has a direct link to the use of radios and the third movement video. She wrote a letter to (I believe) the New York Philharmonic saying, oh my God, this broadcast on the radio is my first "hearing" of the Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." She described how she was able to distinguish different timbres of instruments and how she could imagine that these different levels of instruments and voices would come together in this grand "Ode to Joy" performance. This radio technology allowed her to feel something that she wouldn't have before, because if she went to the Philharmonic, she wouldn't be able to have that experience.