The Hidden Magician - A Resonant Installation for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Early in 2008, the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Geomatics, in partnership with Bloorview Kids Rehab (BKR), the Institut de réadaptation en déficience physique du Québec (IRDPQ) and Studio BourbeauVoiceDynamics, began to work on the creation of a "resonant installation" addressing the needs of children with cerebral palsy and other motor deficits. Under the title "The Hidden Magician", this broad collaborative effort seeks to develop a participative, immersive installation in which children with cerebral and motor deficits can establish a different relationship with their immediate environment and feel more empowered and recognized for who they are.

Like our other installation initiatives, the approach adopted is to develop an installation design through a broad consultative process that includes researchers, artists, engineers, hospital administration staff, clinicians, students, parents, and the children themselves. Installations must address the needs of the children in ways that are conducive to enhancing their physical and emotional states of being, and yet also generate powerful experiences that are aesthetically interesting and are challenging, even transforming. We use new media technologies including surround projections, gesture recognition interfaces, spatialized sound and tactile environments, combined with engineering skills to develop specialized interfaces that provide enhanced environmental responsiveness for these children.

The project embraces a variety of research areas, from issues about design methodologies, questions concerning the impacts of immersive and participative experiences on children struggling with issues of growth and identity, and efforts to develop measurement and evaluation tools that can better characterize the effectiveness of these installations.

The design concept is still in its early stages. The overall concept has been presented to a broad cross-section of individuals - researchers, artists, clinicians and administrators where it has elicited a great deal of interest and support - both at Bloorview Kids Rehab in Toronto and the IRDPQ in Quebec City. The work is now moving forward into a second stage, focussed on the development of a series of workshops with this diverse clientèle that will feed the design process. Workshops involve a combination of physical activities that aim to allow participants to "think with their bodies" rather than "staying in their heads", and brainstorming and sharing exercises that explore design values and principles. We use dancers, clowns and other specialists in movement to facilitate these exercises.

It is expected that the installation, when completed, will be able to "go on tour" to other interested locations (hospitals, clinics, schools, etc.), and that it will serve as much to sensitize a broader public to the unique qualities of these children as it will enable both the children themselves and their caregivers to rethink their perceptions of who they are.

Virtualities and Culturalities in Düsseldorf

Are you an insider or an outsider? Real or virtual? Do you have to be either one or the other? In collaboration with BourbeauVoiceDynamics and the Düsseldorf Stadtmuseum, and with the LAMIC and LANTISS, the Canada Research Chair is undertaking the preparation of a ten day exhibition to be held April 4 - April 13 in Düsseldorf. The exhibition, entitled "Virtualities and Culturalities in Düsseldorf" will present an interactive virtual event highlighting the multi-ethnicity of Düsseldorf.

Each community has its own understanding of the city, based on its commuting patterns and culturally-specific landmarks. The marketplaces, churches, synagogues and mosques, recreational centres and ethnic restaurants together with a person’s movement form a “heart map” of the city. These places also support events which highlight and celebrate each community’s cultural heritage. Traditional costumes, music and dancing can define one as being in or out of a community. When employed in the country of origin, they enhance the feeling of being « inside » an ethnic group. These same rituals, however, held in a host country, underline a ethnic group’s distinctiveness, and hence the feeling of being on the « outside », or periphery of society. The modern city offers an alternative to this polarity of exclusion, however, in the form of an eclectic fusion that draws from different traditions, celebrating the contribution of each and yet creating new spaces for identity. Within such fusions, it is possible to be both “inside” and “out”.

In this interactive exhibition, the public is encouraged to « mix and match » clothing from different ethnic traditions so as to create a fashion fusion rooted in folklore and tradition but with a distinct link to the present. Combined with “heart maps” for several different communities, and contact via avatars with virtual folk dances, the installation seeks to engage both the younger population via its innovative use of Second Life and virtual worlds, and the older population by its integration of ethnic traditions in fashion, dance and music. Vive la difference!