A Day in the Life...

This has been an amazing autumn. I am doing some of the most creative work I have ever done in my career, and at the same time it has been a highly productive period, generating six full peer-reviewed papers over the past year, with three-plus more in the works. So, a typical day :

1. Designing erotic accessories for people with disabilities : This is a two-year project funded by Quebec's Fonds de recherche québécois en société et culture (FQRSC), led by my collaborator Dr Ernesto Morales and involving, in addition to myself, our sexologist collaborator Dr Frédérique Courtois. We organized a series with people with a range of disabilities, both men and women, to discuss their masturbation practices and the difficulties and challenges they face. Based on these interviews, we have elaborated some preliminary designs. Most of these are of the "handle" type, that is, extensions that connect to existing sex toys that allow people with a range of disabilities to use these more effectively. In addition, some actual sex toys are also under development where there don't appear to be any commercial ones available. The work is inspiring in the sense that we are clearly serving a need that exists and for which little work has been done in the past. Our work in this area will probably provide a kind of basis for encouraging other projects in this area over the coming years. Furthermore, the designs we are producing can be either 3d printed directly, or one can 3d print molds that are used to construct the object from non 3d-printed materials such as silicone gels.

2. Understanding how children with and without disability move together : This is a three-year project funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research under the leadership of my collaborator Dr Coralee McLaren and involving, in addition to myself, Dr Tom Chau and Dr Barbara Gibson from Holland-Blooview Kids Rehab and Dr Cheryl Missiuna from the University of Waterloo. The project involves bringing a group of children, both with and without disabilities, together within a dance exercise that encompasses both structured and unstructured movement exercises. We will be monitoring the children's neurological responses via their own movements, but especially as they observe and respond to the movements of other children. Although we have not yet begin the full data analysis phase, we have used the EEG cap to study one child's responses to the movements of others, and the results, even for this one individual, are fascinating. Certain observed movements trigger "motor imagery" related to those movements, but not all movements have this effect. It seems that children "feel" certain movements of their peers more than others, and these "felt movements" trigger them to move in similar ways (a kind of mimicking). These observations are changing how we understand the way children play together. There will be much more to come, but even these preliminary results are intriguing.

3. Designing interactive and immersive installations for people with disabilities : Artists across the world are designing and implementing immersive and interactive installations that provide unusual experiences to participants. These installations are often not accessible to people with disabilities. In addition, the experience of disability can itself generate new possibilities for unusual experiences for those without disability, and unusual experiences of the body can lead to new insights for people with disabilities about their own interactions with the environment. A Ph.D. student, Ms. Afnen Arfaoui, has taken on the challenge of developing a design methodology for creating interactive and immersive installations that address issues of disability. She is drawing on Alfred North Whitehead's "process philosophy" in order to structure this design process. This is leading to a novel approach to design of these unusual installations, an approach which integrates both scientific preoccupations and artistic sensitivities.

4. Designing a participative, interactive opera : Given today's technology and the possibilities offered by social networking, it seems obvious that the traditional presentation formats of performance art - theatre, music, opera, dance - should evolve. Modifying the formats of public presentations of these art forms is not easy, however - these have settled into "ways of doing" that are normative and generally accepted by the public. We propose to open up the opera form to new forms of interaction with the audience. To do this, we are working with an unpublished manuscript (see the discussion of the opera project below), a science fiction story still under development. The manuscript is part of a "vast narrative" type project, that is to say, the story is told across 15 books in over 2500 pages, and parts of the story are finding their way into a variety of formats, including game environments and visual art (paintings). Furthermore, the story draws inspiration from the Greek myths and legends of gods and heroes, in particular the stories of Agamemnon Atreus and his family (the Oresteia), of Jason and Medea, of Odysseus and his compatriots and family, and of Orpheus and his family. The Greeks "invented" dramatic presentations, but in their day the public played an active role in the presentation of theatre. We propose to restore this participation. Right now, the issue we are struggling with is how to "segment" the story (in essence, the libretto) into short pieces which can be recombined in different ways through audience choices. The segments have to work not just as text, but also musically and choreographically. You can't just take an arbitrary piece of music and move it around, the result will be incoherent. Choreography also imposes constraints on the process. So as a team we are working on finding a kind of "basic unit" that incorporates the constraints on music, dance and text recombination.

5. Ongoing projects in other areas : Beyond these main challenges, which tend to be present every day in one form or another, several other projects are also ongoing. As part of the effort of developing smart garments and intelligent environments, I am drawing on ecoscience theory to develop a new understanding of complex sensor systems to assist the design process, and to recognize the need to address issues of personal vulnerability as these systems encroach on the highly personal spaces of the body. Another project under development focusses on designing techniques to test and enhance the combined effect of viewing and feeling the body, as a means to improve movement retraining following stroke, for example. In a third area we are looking at how to recruit adolescents with disabilities for a study of virtual reality as a tool for skill development for eventual employment. And this work excludes my ongoing writing initiatives and my work on fashion design...

EMIR Laboratory Now Functional

It has taken longer to get the lab completed and operational than expected, but this has finally been achieved. In conjunction with the efforts to complete the installation of the laboratory, we have developed five demos that showcase the potential of the laboratory to support diverse projects in rehabilitation and disability studies. These are as follows :

1. Fragment de vie (Fragmented Life) : Demo that provides different viewpoints of disability by offering different soundtracks for the same film delivered to wireless headphones (collaboration with CinéScène Inc.)
2. Vertiges (Vertigo) : Demo that provides an experience of vertigo by simulating walking across a narrow pathway suspended above Quebec City (collaboration with CinéScène Inc.)
3. Deuxième peau (Second Skin) : Demo that provides an observer a vicarious experience of disability. The movements of a person in a motion capture suit are transfered in real time to an avatar in a virtual kitchen, but attempts to interact with the kitchen and manipulate objects are restricted because the avatar experiences various types of motor impairment (collaboration with CinéScène Inc.)
4. Viscères (Visceres) : Demonstration of a body-based interface for virtual navigation of spaces (Google Street Map)
5. Meta-laboratoire (Meta-laboratory) : Demonstration of the use of the lab to support immersive experiments, in this case, a study of the effects of heminegligence on spatial orientation and judgement in the far field (collaboration with CinéScène Inc. and Dr. Julien Voisin)

In addition to the demos, a growing number of research projects are taking place that harness the possibilities that the lab offers. I have subdivided these projects into six categories : Bimodal Environments, Trimodal Environments, Movement-based Environments, Visceral Environments, Virtual Environments and Geographic Environments.

1. Bimodal Environments : Immersive environments that engage two major sense modalities

   Hemispheres (Hémisphères)

   Experimental study in planning stages of far-field effects of heminegligence (collaboration with Dr. Julien Voisin)

   Co-breather (Co-respirateur)

   Design and validation study underway to build and test four co-breathers for possible clinical applications. Co-breathers provide auditory-tactile immersion (collaboration with Ms. M.L. Bourbeau and C. Légaré)

2. Trimodal Environments : Immersive environments that engage three major sense modalities

   Living Wall (Mur vivant)

   Project in preparation, aimed at developing a playful immersive installation for waiting areas in clinics for children and adolescents that offers an engaging and absorbing environment that provides motor training opportunities (dexterity exercises) for individuals with fine motor impairments (collaboration with Dr. Ernesto Morales; projected Ph.D. thesis of Walid Baccari)

   Pro(x)thèse (Pro(x)thesis)

   Project underway in design phase, aimed at developing a clinical tool for allowing people with disability to explore sexual/sensual imagery and providing the means to track image choices over time. The tool involves the use of a touch-sensitive smart garment and an immersive visual environment, and we are commissioning photos by a professional photographer (collaboration with Dr. Ernesto Morales and Dr Frédérique Courtois).

   Auric Space (Espace aurique)

   Current in the planning stage, this project seeks to provide a training environment for people who have difficulties locating sounds in their immediate environment. We will use a bimodal environment (visual and auditory and haptic) to provide cues to and test for sound location (projected Ph.D. thesis of Afnen Arfaoui)

3. Movement-based Environments : Immersive environments that explore movement modalities

   Third Skin (Troisième peau)

   Project in planning stages that seeks to extend the work initiated in the project "Second Skin" to provide a variety of vicarious experiences of disability and ability

   Choreographic maps (Cartes chorégraphiques)

   Planned project that seeks to study how dance may contribute to emerging ideas about how children play (collaboration with Dr. Cora McLaren)

4. Visceral Environments : Immersive environments that explore actions rooted in the engagement of the body's visceral organs

   Visceres II (Viscères)

   Project in planning stages that aims to test the hypothesis that viscerally learned spaces are more fully understood and remembered than spaces learned by more traditional means

   OrienT (OrienT)

   Planned project that seeks to use a smart garment to help people who get easily disoriented to resituate themselves in their environments (collaboration with Dr. Claude Vincent)

5. Virtual Environments : Immersive virtual environments

   Virtuarch (Virtuarch)

   Project in design development stage that seeks to provide adolescents with disabilities who feel isolated and have a tendency towards depression, access to an environment and situation that engages them in the creative design of architectural spaces (collaboration with Dr. Ernesto Morales)

6. Geographic Environments : Immersive environments that encourage an appropriation of geographic space

   Multimodal Online Mapping Interface (Interface multimodal pour la cartographie en ligne)

   Project in planning stage that seeks to design and implement an on-line multimodal interface for a mapping application that draws on cognitive design principles (collaboration with Dr. Mir Mostafavi; projected Ph.D. thesis of Bilel Saadani)

These different projects seek to serve a variety of populations of people with impairments, including the deaf, the deafblind, the blind, those with low vision, people with either gross or fine motor impairments, people with attention deficits and people with intellectual impairments. Furthermore, different projects have different scientific goals and involve distinct methodologies. These include projects that are experimental or involve evaluation and assessment (Hemispheres, Visceres, etc.), projects that have more educational or pedagogical objectives (Second/Third Skin, etc.), projects that seek the development of assistive technologies or that are focused on design issues (OrienT, etc.), projects aimed at developing training environments (Auric Space, etc.), projects aimed at enhancing personal development among those struggling with issues of disability and impairment (Virtuarch, Pro(x)thesis, etc.), and projects that are far more exploratory in nature (Choreographic Maps, etc.).

Transformative Installations - Global perspective

Since the early development work on the Bloorview initiative (called at the time the "Hidden Magician" project), our efforts to develop a whole range of "transformative" or "resonant" installations has moved forward by leaps and bounds into several major initiatives. We are currently active in the development of a major "new generation environment" at Bloorview Kids Rehab that we are calling the "Living Walls Initiative". Within this project, we are developing a highly interactive, one might say "reactive" wall mural that responds to the presence of children with disability in many different ways. Our goal is to change the way the children understand their relationship to their surrounding space.

Children with disability struggle within environments which are highly disabling. Indeed, we call the children "disabled" but we might more usefully call the environments within which they (and we) function disabling environments. As a result, these children often feel like they are a burden on others, that they have to struggle with the environment, that they are what's "wrong". By developing new environments that are much more responsive to a variety of forms and levels of disability, we aim to challenge this understanding, to offer these children an insight into other possible relations they might have to the spaces that surround them and with which they engage.


An early conceptualization of the Living Walls Initiative
The Living Walls initiative is the first major attempt to do this. The overall concept is to develop a large wall mural (we're thinking 8 feet high by 20 feet long) that is made up of motorized elements that will respond, via appropriately designed interfaces, to children with various forms of disability. The mural will depict a scene of relevance to the hospital - a depiction of the ravine that drops away behind the hospital and which has already been incorporated in a number of ways into the design of the hospital building. This allows the children to be attuned to the presence of natural elements in the local environment of the hospital. We are designing into the mural elements which may change color and shape and hence depict the changing seasons. However, the main focus of the mural is to allow the children to interact with the scene and to make interesting changes to it. For example, we are building in animal figures that may hide or emerge at different moments, when the mural senses a child in its proximity. By making some sort of movement, whether using a wheelchair or a gesture, children will be able to change several aspects of the mural - the intensity of water flow in the built-in waterfall, the shape and color of leaves in the trees, the overflight of planes, and so on.

The project is moving from its conceptual design phase into the development of early prototypes that will be used to test the implementation before this is fully fleshed out. At the same time, funds are being sought, both from private donors and funding agencies, in support of the project. Many of the partnerships needed for its success are already in place.

A second "next generation environment" projet also aimed at helping children with disability has been named the "Ado-Matrix Project". This project focuses particularly on the plight of adolescents with disability, who face a situation where they tend to become isolated from their peers and are in a difficult position to build new friendships. To serve their needs, we are developing a tele-gaming environment that "equalizes" player access across different levels of ability, so that a severely handicapped adolescent may play on an equal footing as an able-bodied friend. Our project seeks to create remotely controlled robots that must work together in a common, physically real environment to achieve group goals. Each adolescent will control his or her own robot, an semi-independent webcam and will have access to group chat either through text or voice or a combination of these. Different robots will have different functionality, however. For this project we are still building partnerships and doing conceptual design.

A third installation project on which we are working addresses the issue of climate change and environmental responsibility. Here our aim is to develop an installation that can be taken to the urban public and which will sensitize participants not only to the issues of the environment but do so in a manner that is informed by an awareness of the inequities in urban life and how different elements of the community may learn to find common ground in addressing these issues. The project bears the title "Voices of Transition".

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.