E-skin: Research into Wearable Interfaces, Cross-modal Perception and Communication for the Visually Impaired on the Mediated Stage

Today our cultural events are dominated by visual information based on sight and sound, but hardly at all on the combined senses of touch and sound. Visually impaired users, lacking sight are not often able to engage in cultural events. Compensated audio-description or talking books are standard products that visually impaired people can buy to imagine feature film stories or decide what is happening on the stage. Very little theatre, dance or art events exist in which these people can actually participate. Interfaces are not often designed which promote communication between impaired actors, nor allow them to navigate and control audio-visual information on the mediated or digital stage. As neuroscientists suggest, the unique cross-modal potentials of human sensory perception could be augmented by electronic devices, which in turn might communicate with sighted audiences. Our research group is interested to address these problems by constructing ergonomic HCI (Human Computer Interfaces) that can explore the above problems including research into orientation, cognition mapping and external audio-visual device control. Consequently, we are implementing our discoveries in artificial systems, which can interact intelligently with people on the digitally simulated stage.