The world without sound, can you imagine this? It’s an everyday battle for the deaf. No music on the radio, not be able to hear laughter of loved ones, no sound on TV, it’s a very quiet and lonely world. The Sound Shirt is a concept shirt designed specifically to allow a deaf person to feel music on their skin, making them possible to experience live symphonic concert for the first time. This innovative shirt delivers tactile experience where hearing impaired people can really immerse in music, something that we can hear, they can feel.
The Sound Shirt by CuteCircuit features 16 micro-actuators embedded in the fabric of the garment. These actuators are able to receive wirelessly and in real-time the music while the orchestra is playing on-stage, then transform it into data. Violins can be felt on the arms, the drums on the back, thus creating a fully immersive feeling for a deaf audience member. The entire composition comes to life as a language composed of a series of haptic sensations across the torso of the person wearing this shirt. The Sound Shirt is very comfortable to wear, it is made of soft stretch fabric, there are no wires in the garment since it is built using most advanced smart textiles and wearable technology.
There are conductive pathways within the garment of Sound Shirt, but they are composed of woven conductive textiles and seamlessly integrated onto the fabric of the garment. The visual design offers a metaphor for the relationship between the vibrations and sound waves modulating in different frequencies. Those connecting lines also serve as a tacit diagram of the underlying data network.
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