Haptic Aurality: Listening in a Digital World

I will question modes of listening in network music performance environments, drawing on my experience as a performer listening in these scenarios. I will situate network listening, which I have previously examined as ‘haptic aurality’ (Schroeder, 2009, 2012, 2013) within the context of current music making, and will refer to changes in compositional practices that draw specific attention to listening. I will show that some of these compositional developments play a determining role in articulating a new discourse of listening. French composer Eric Satie’s concept of Furniture Music (in Duckworth, 2005), Pierre Schaeffer’s ideas on reduced listening (1966), Pauline Oliveros’ deep listening practices (2005) as well as digital music platforms all serve to show a development towards a proliferation in listening experiences. I expand this narrative to listening practices in network performance environments, and identify a specific bodily fragility in listening in and to the network. This fragile state of listening and de-centered kind of performative being allow me to draw parallels to the Japanese art form Butoh (Kasai, 1999, 2000; Kasai and Parsons, 2003) and Elaine Scarry’s metaphor of beauty (Scarry, 2001). My own performance experiences, set within the context of several critical texts, allow me to understand network[ed] listening as an ideal corporeal state, which offers a rethinking of linear conceptions of the other and a subject’s own relation with her world. Ultimately, network[ed] listening posits listening as a corporeal and multi-dimensional experience that is continuously being re-shaped by technological, socio-political and cultural concerns.

Haptic Aurality – performing in a digital world

Paper accepted at 2015 ISIS in Utrecht. This presentation will examine the performative body from the viewpoint of the listening body in digital media platforms, and thus investigates the proposed conference issues which are at the intersections of ‘play’, ‘perform’ and ‘participate’.

A Novel Multimodal Interface for Improving Visually Impaired People's Web Accessibility

This paper introduces a novel interface designed to help blind and visually impaired people to explore and navigate on the Web. In contrast to traditionally used assistive tools, such as screen readers and magnifiers, the new interface employs a combination of both audio and haptic features to provide spatial and navigational information to users. The haptic features are presented via a low-cost force feedback mouse allowing blind people to interact with the Web, in a similar fashion to their sighted counterparts. The audio provides navigational and textual information through the use of non-speech sounds and synthesised speech. Interacting with the multimodal interface offers a novel experience to target users, especially to those with total blindness. A series of experiments have been conducted to ascertain the usability of the interface and compare its performance to that of a traditional screen reader. Results have shown the advantages that the new multimodal interface offers blind and visually impaired people. This includes the enhanced perception of the spatial layout of Web pages, and navigation towards elements on a page. Certain issues regarding the design of the haptic and audio features raised in the evaluation are discussed and presented in terms of recommendations for future work.

The Body Skinned Rethinking performative presence

In this paper I examine the transformation that the skin has undergone over the centuries. This change in conception in the skin whereby the skin is considered less a boundary space and more akin to a milieu, a meeting place for the other senses, allows me to posit the performative body as one engaged in a haptic condition, as a body in intimately lived-in spaces with tactile relations. A shift from the optical towards the haptic, in which the all- encompassing god-like view of traditional performance environments becomes replaced by a more haptic condition, as can be exemplified in performances in dispersed environments, posits the body skinned as a fragile body that wants to favour the incomplete and the fragmented. The body skinned is a body initiated by the observed and the perspectival, but it is nourished by means of the local and the embodied. It is a body that, like the skin, is more akin to a meeting place of, and for, the other senses, as well as for senses of the others. Most clearly, the body skinned brings to the fore a potential of being ‘connected a little less’. It is a body that embraces notions of the incomplete, of glances, and of fantasies, and in this light may be a body more ideally suited to environments that purposely displace performative action, such as found in network performance environments.

Combining multisensory temporal information for movement synchronisation

The ability to synchronise actions with environmental events is a fundamental skill supporting a variety of group activities. In such situations, multiple sensory cues are usually available for synchronisation, yet previous studies have suggested that auditory cues dominate those from other modalities. We examine the control of rhythmic action on the basis of auditory and haptic cues and show that performance is sensitive to both sources of information for synchronisation. Participants were required to tap the dominant hand index finger in synchrony with a metronome defined by periodic auditory tones, imposed movements of the non-dominant index finger, or both cues together. Synchronisation was least variable with the bimodal metronome as predicted by a maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) model. However, increases in timing variability of the auditory cue resulted in some departures from the MLE model. Our findings indicate the need for further investigation of the MLE account of the integration of multisensory signals in the temporal control of action.

Simulation using novel equipment designed to explain spirometric abnormalities in respiratory disease enhances learning in higher cognitive domains

Simulation of disorders of respiratory mechanics shown by spirometry provides insight into the pathophysiology of disease but some clinically important disorders have not been simulated and none have been formally evaluated for education. We have designed simple mechanical devices which, along with existing simulators, enable all the main dysfunctions which have diagnostic value in spirometry to be simulated and clearly explained with visual and haptic feedback. We modelled the airways as Starling resistors by a clearly visible mechanical action to simulate intra- and extra-thoracic obstruction. A narrow tube was used to simulate fixed large airway obstruction and inelastic bands to simulate restriction. We hypothesized that using simulators whose action explains disease promotes learning especially in higher domain educational objectives. The main features of obstruction and restriction were correctly simulated. Simulation of variable extra-thoracic obstruction caused blunting and plateauing of inspiratory flow, and simulation of intra-thoracic obstruction caused limitation of expiratory flow with marked dynamic compression. Multiple choice tests were created with questions allocated to lower (remember and understand) or higher cognitive domains (apply, analyse and evaluate). In a cross-over design, overall mean scores increased after 1½ h simulation spirometry (43-68 %, effect size 1.06, P < 0.0001). In higher cognitive domains the mean score was lower before and increased further than lower domains (Δ 30 vs 20 %, higher vs lower effect size 0.22, P < 0.05). In conclusion, the devices successfully simulate various patterns of obstruction and restriction. Using these devices medical students achieved marked enhancement of learning especially in higher cognitive domains.