Looking Outwards-04

The SoundShirt

The SoundShirt is a project created by CuteCircuit, a company co-founded by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz. This company was founded on the desire to use technology to amplify haptic senses and interactions. In 2002, they made the HugShirt which is a shirt with sensors that recreate the sensation of touch. 14 years later in 2016, they branched off this concept to develop the SoundShirt. The SoundShirt contains even more sensors that connect to different sound frequencies and instruments to deliver a specialized haptic experience designed to allow people who cannot hear to experience music. The shirt is designed to work in different music scenarios including live orchestras, concerts, raves, listening to music on your phone, and even playing video games. The shirt is able to adapt to the different scenarios to provide an experience that allows you to feel the music in the most authentic way possible.

I first learned about this shirt when I saw it in the Access+Ability show at the CMOA in 2019. I instantly fell in love with the project the first time I saw it. I admire the focus on accessibly and utilization of technology and computation to transform sound for a community heavily left behind. Although different than what we might be doing in this class, the similarities are clearly evident. While we might be taking sound and finding a way to convert the experience to something visual, this project takes that same idea and theory of computation to translate sound into something tactile. In both scenarios we are using computation to visualize senses in different ways which I find beautiful. While I believe this project is currently only available for select testing and presentations, I hope it finds a way into the public market because I think it is something really important for people who are deaf to have the chance to experience.