Tag Archives: hearing loss

Large Interactive Virtual Environment Laboratory (LIVELab) located in McMaster University’s Institute for Music & the Mind (MIMM) and the MetaCreation Lab at Simon Fraser University

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Both of these bits have a music focus but they represent two entirely different science-based approaches to that form of art and one is solely about the music and the other is included as one of the art-making processes being investigated..

Large Interactive Virtual Environment Laboratory (LIVELab) at McMaster University

Laurel Trainor and Dan J. Bosnyak both of McMaster University (Ontario, Canada) have written an October 27, 2019 essay about the LiveLab and their work for The Conversation website (Note: Links have been removed),

The Large Interactive Virtual Environment Laboratory (LIVELab) at McMaster University is a research concert hall. It functions as both a high-tech laboratory and theatre, opening up tremendous opportunities for research and investigation.

As the only facility of its kind in the world, the LIVELab is a 106-seat concert hall equipped with dozens of microphones, speakers and sensors to measure brain responses, physiological responses such as heart rate, breathing rates, perspiration and movements in multiple musicians and audience members at the same time.

Engineers, psychologists and clinician-researchers from many disciplines work alongside musicians, media artists and industry to study performance, perception, neural processing and human interaction.

In the LIVELab, acoustics are digitally controlled so the experience can change instantly from extremely silent with almost no reverberation to a noisy restaurant to a subway platform or to the acoustics of Carnegie Hall.

…

Real-time physiological data such as heart rate can be synchronized with data from other systems such as motion capture, and monitored and recorded from both performers and audience members. The result is that the reams of data that can now be collected in a few hours in the LIVELab used to take weeks or months to collect in a traditional lab. And having measurements of multiple people simultaneously is pushing forward our understanding of real-time human interactions.

Consider the implications of how music might help people with Parkinson’s disease to walk more smoothly or children with dyslexia to read better.

…

[…] area of ongoing research is the effectiveness of hearing aids. By the age of 60, nearly 49 per cent of people will suffer from some hearing loss. People who wear hearing aids are often frustrated when listening to music because the hearing aids distort the sound and cannot deal with the dynamic range of the music.

The LIVELab is working with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra to solve this problem. During a recent concert, researchers evaluated new ways of delivering sound directly to participants’ hearing aids to enhance sounds.

Researchers hope new technologies can not only increase live musical enjoyment but alleviate the social isolation caused by hearing loss.

Imagine the possibilities for understanding music and sound: How it might help to improve cognitive decline, manage social performance anxiety, help children with developmental disorders, aid in treatment of depression or keep the mind focused. Every time we conceive and design a study, we think of new possibilities.

The essay also includes an embedded 12 min. video about LIVELab and details about studies conducted on musicians and live audiences. Apparently, audiences experience live performance differently than recorded performances and musicians use body sway to create cohesive performances. You can find the McMaster Institute for Music & the Mind here and McMaster’s LIVELab here.

Capturing the motions of a string quartet performance. Laurel Trainor, Author provided [McMaster University]

Metacreation Lab at Simon Fraser University (SFU)

I just recently discovered that there’s a Metacreation Lab at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada), which on its homepage has this ” Metacreation is the idea of endowing machines with creative behavior.” Here’s more from the homepage,

As the contemporary approach to generative art, Metacreation involves using tools and techniques from artificial intelligence, artificial life, and machine learning to develop software that partially or completely automates creative tasks. Through the collaboration between scientists, experts in artificial intelligence, cognitive sciences, designers and artists, the Metacreation Lab for Creative AI is at the forefront of the development of generative systems, be they embedded in interactive experiences or integrated into current creative software. Scientific research in the Metacreation Lab explores how various creative tasks can be automated and enriched. These tasks include music composition [emphasis mine], sound design, video editing, audio/visual effect generation, 3D animation, choreography, and video game design.

Besides scientific research, the team designs interactive and generative artworks that build upon the algorithms and research developed in the Lab. This work often challenges the social and cultural discourse on AI.

Much to my surprise I received the Metacreation Lab’s inaugural email newsletter (received via email on Friday, November 15, 2019),

Greetings,

We decided to start a mailing list for disseminating news, updates, and announcements regarding generative art, creative AI and New Media. In this newsletter: 

  1. ISEA 2020: The International Symposium on Electronic Art. ISEA return to Montreal, check the CFP bellow and contribute!
  2. ISEA 2015: A transcription of Sara Diamond’s keynote address “Action Agenda: Vancouver’s Prescient Media Arts” is now available for download. 
  3. Brain Art, the book: we are happy to announce the release of the first comprehensive volume on Brain Art. Edited by Anton Nijholt, and published by Springer.

Here are more details from the newsletter,

ISEA2020 – 26th International Symposium on Electronic Arts

Montreal, September 24, 2019
Montreal Digital Spring (Printemps numérique) is launching a call for participation as part of ISEA2020 / MTL connect to be held from May 19 to 24, 2020 in Montreal, Canada. Founded in 1990, ISEA is one of the world’s most prominent international arts and technology events, bringing together scholarly, artistic, and scientific domains in an interdisciplinary discussion and showcase of creative productions applying new technologies in art, interactivity, and electronic and digital media. For 2020, ISEA Montreal turns towards the theme of sentience.

ISEA2020 will be fully dedicated to examining the resurgence of sentience—feeling-sensing-making sense—in recent art and design, media studies, science and technology studies, philosophy, anthropology, history of science and the natural scientific realm—notably biology, neuroscience and computing. We ask: why sentience? Why and how does sentience matter? Why have artists and scholars become interested in sensing and feeling beyond, with and around our strictly human bodies and selves? Why has this notion been brought to the fore in an array of disciplines in the 21st century?
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: WHY SENTIENCE? ISEA2020 invites artists, designers, scholars, researchers, innovators and creators to participate in the various activities deployed from May 19 to 24, 2020. To complete an application, please fill in the forms and follow the instructions.

The final submissions deadline is NOVEMBER 25, 2019. Submit your application for WORKSHOP and TUTORIAL Submit your application for ARTISTIC WORK Submit your application for FULL / SHORT PAPER Submit your application for PANEL Submit your application for POSTER Submit your application for ARTIST TALK Submit your application for INSTITUTIONAL PRESENTATION
Find Out More
You can apply for several categories. All profiles are welcome. Notifications of acceptance will be sent around January 13, 2020.

Important: please note that the Call for participation for MTL connect is not yet launched, but you can also apply to participate in the programming of the other Pavilions (4 other themes) when registrations are open (coming soon): mtlconnecte.ca/en TICKETS

Registration is now available to assist to ISEA2020 / MTL connect, from May 19 to 24, 2020. Book today your Full Pass and get the early-bird rate!
Buy Now

More from the newsletter,

ISEA 2015 was in Vancouver, Canada, and the proceedings and art catalog are still online. The news is that Sara Diamond released her 2015 keynote address as a paper: Action Agenda: Vancouver’s Prescient Media Arts. It is never too late so we thought we would let you know about this great read. See The 2015 Proceedings Here

The last item from the inaugural newsletter,

The first book that surveys how brain activity can be monitored and manipulated for artistic purposes, with contributions by interactive media artists, brain-computer interface researchers, and neuroscientists. View the Book Here

As per the Leonardo review from Cristina Albu:

“Another seminal contribution of the volume is the presentation of multiple taxonomies of “brain art,” which can help art critics develop better criteria for assessing this genre. Mirjana Prpa and Philippe Pasquier’s meticulous classification shows how diverse such works have become as artists consider a whole range of variables of neurofeedback.” Read the Review

For anyone not familiar with the ‘Leonardo’ cited in the above, it’s Leonardo; the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology.

Should this kind of information excite and motivate you do start metacreating, you can get in touch with the lab,

Our mailing address is:
Metacreation Lab for Creative AI
School of Interactive Arts & Technology
Simon Fraser University
250-13450 102 Ave.
Surrey, BC V3T 0A3
Web: http://metacreation.net/
Email: metacreation_admin (at) sfu (dot) ca

Solar-powered graphene skin for more feeling in your prosthetics

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A March 23, 2017 news item on Nanowerk highlights research that could put feeling into a prosthetic limb,

A new way of harnessing the sun’s rays to power ‘synthetic skin’ could help to create advanced prosthetic limbs capable of returning the sense of touch to amputees.

Engineers from the University of Glasgow, who have previously developed an ‘electronic skin’ covering for prosthetic hands made from graphene, have found a way to use some of graphene’s remarkable physical properties to use energy from the sun to power the skin.

Graphene is a highly flexible form of graphite which, despite being just a single atom thick, is stronger than steel, electrically conductive, and transparent. It is graphene’s optical transparency, which allows around 98% of the light which strikes its surface to pass directly through it, which makes it ideal for gathering energy from the sun to generate power.

A March 23, 2017 University of Glasgow press release, which originated the news item, details more about the research,

Ravinder Dahiya

Dr Ravinder Dahiya

A new research paper, published today in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, describes how Dr Dahiya and colleagues from his Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) group have integrated power-generating photovoltaic cells into their electronic skin for the first time.

Dr Dahiya, from the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering, said: “Human skin is an incredibly complex system capable of detecting pressure, temperature and texture through an array of neural sensors which carry signals from the skin to the brain.

“My colleagues and I have already made significant steps in creating prosthetic prototypes which integrate synthetic skin and are capable of making very sensitive pressure measurements. Those measurements mean the prosthetic hand is capable of performing challenging tasks like properly gripping soft materials, which other prosthetics can struggle with. We are also using innovative 3D printing strategies to build more affordable sensitive prosthetic limbs, including the formation of a very active student club called ‘Helping Hands’.

“Skin capable of touch sensitivity also opens the possibility of creating robots capable of making better decisions about human safety. A robot working on a construction line, for example, is much less likely to accidentally injure a human if it can feel that a person has unexpectedly entered their area of movement and stop before an injury can occur.”

The new skin requires just 20 nanowatts of power per square centimetre, which is easily met even by the poorest-quality photovoltaic cells currently available on the market. And although currently energy generated by the skin’s photovoltaic cells cannot be stored, the team are already looking into ways to divert unused energy into batteries, allowing the energy to be used as and when it is required.

Dr Dahiya added: “The other next step for us is to further develop the power-generation technology which underpins this research and use it to power the motors which drive the prosthetic hand itself. This could allow the creation of an entirely energy-autonomous prosthetic limb.

“We’ve already made some encouraging progress in this direction and we’re looking forward to presenting those results soon. We are also exploring the possibility of building on these exciting results to develop wearable systems for affordable healthcare. In this direction, recently we also got small funds from Scottish Funding Council.”

For more information about this advance and others in the field of prosthetics you may want to check out Megan Scudellari’s March 30, 2017 article for the IEEE’s (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Spectrum (Note: Links have been removed),

Cochlear implants can restore hearing to individuals with some types of hearing loss. Retinal implants are now on the market to restore sight to the blind. But there are no commercially available prosthetics that restore a sense of touch to those who have lost a limb.

Several products are in development, including this haptic system at Case Western Reserve University, which would enable upper-limb prosthetic users to, say, pluck a grape off a stem or pull a potato chip out of a bag. It sounds simple, but such tasks are virtually impossible without a sense of touch and pressure.

Now, a team at the University of Glasgow that previously developed a flexible ‘electronic skin’ capable of making sensitive pressure measurements, has figured out how to power their skin with sunlight. …

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Energy-Autonomous, Flexible, and Transparent Tactile Skin by Carlos García Núñez, William Taube Navaraj, Emre O. Polat and Ravinder Dahiya. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201606287 Version of Record online: 22 MAR 2017

© 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This paper is behind a paywall.