CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Brad Dunn, with Chicago’s Lyric Opera, couldn’t contain his excitement as he demonstrated a one-of-a-kind piece of technology on Tuesday. It’s called a “Sound Shirt,” and it’s designed to be worn by patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing.
“It’s not just that I’m excited about it,” he said. “It’s that it’s … the perfect application of technology to enhance the thing we actually do, which is classical music.”
Dunn said Sound Shirt brings wearable technology to the opera house for the first time and allows the wearer to experience the music and vocals playing out before them in real time — through touch.
The magic begins, he said, right as the music starts.
“We have microphones that capture the sound, send it to a computer, [which] turns the sound into touch data, and that gets broadcast wirelessly to a little brain … in the back of the shirt,” he said. “That takes all of the information and sends it to the 16 different haptic actuators, or little motors, and we’re able to send different sections of the orchestra to different zones of the shirt.”
Rachel Arfa, the first deaf commissioner of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities in Chicago, was among the first to test the technology.
“The Sound Shirt gave me access to the sound of the performance in a way I have never experienced before,” Arfa said in a press release.
Dunn called the shirt’s technology a game changer for operagoers who are deaf or hard of hearing.
“If you can’t hear, you can get a show intellectually because you can see the story, you can see the subtitles, you can watch the sign language interpreter — but there’s nothing to feel,” he said. “This now creates … an opportunity to have the experience enhanced.”
The Sound Shirt won’t replace ASL interpretation or subtitles, but by allowing wearers to feel the music, Dunn said it “brings the emotional part of the experience.”
The Lyric will be the first opera company in the world to bring this new technology to its live audiences.
Officials said the pilot program begins with the performance of Richard Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” on Sunday, Oct. 1.
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