Anzu Kawazoe, Yon Visell
Installation
2nd floor
We present a wearable system for augmenting tactile interactions with objects. Similar to the auditory phenomena of echoes that are produced during speech inside a reverberant space, like a large cave, Touch Echo is a tactile display device concerned with capturing the signal generated during free- hand touch interactions and applying signal processing (e.g. delay, gain amplification, filtering, etc.) to said signals before returning them to the finger; this produces an echo effect. Using tactile echoes, we can expand the possibilities of tactile experience for virtual and augmented reality applications. The specific application being presented is known as Tactile Painting, which enables users to paint on a touch screen with traditional gestures such as tapping, sliding, and pressing. Through these gestures, multisensory feedback (i.e. tactile, audio, and visual) is generated. Using the Touch Echo system of touch signal capture and reproduction, we can produce a multitude of unique tactile signals which engage users and encourage them to interact with the touch screen and explore the space that composes that virtual application. In this sense, we augment the sensory experience of making art, a practice which is already deeply tactile, acoustic, and visual.