Ryerson University is bringing the noise to a crowd who wouldn’t usually hear it tomorrow night (March 5) at Clinton’s Tavern, at what the organizers are calling the world’s first concert for the deaf and hard of hearing. The event is made possible by the Emoti-Chair, a device that enables deaf people to literally feel the music.
The chairs work by simulating music through vibrations and movement, explains Carmen Branje, a staff researcher at Ryerson’s Centre for Learning Technologies. “The big[est] chair has eight independent speaker channels, and also something we call the butt-kicker — an ultra low-frequency transducer that transmits sounds lower than you can hear — mounted to the base of the chair so you feel those vibrations all over.”
