Papers by Birgitta Cappelen
Computers Helping People with Special Needs, 2018
In this paper, we argue for the value of participatory and interactive art, to increase the quali... more In this paper, we argue for the value of participatory and interactive art, to increase the quality of health and health promoting technology, for children with special needs. UN states through several conventions that everyone has a right to take part in art and cultural experiences, also children and people with disabilities, because art is an important value in our society. With technology, we can make art accessible to people with special needs in completely new ways. By building on the participatory art tradition, in combination with new technology, we can develop new forms of expression and groundbreaking experiences. By incorporating knowledge about health promotion and universal design, we can create new health promoting technology and artistic empowering experiences, by making them more engaging, inspiring and participating for children with special needs. This opportunity has in too little extent, been recognized within Assistive Technology. The paper is based on our research and experience from testing an interactive art installation, with children with special needs at six schools within the Norwegian national school art program.
Staging is the creative act of showing something to an audience. When staging, the artist chooses... more Staging is the creative act of showing something to an audience. When staging, the artist chooses and creates the context, situation and structure of the presented object, play or installation. The chosen context and situation provide background for the audience interpretations. Meaning is co-created between the artist and audience, based on the cultural and individual understanding of the context and situation. The term installation is open, ambiguous and undefined. One does not completely know what to expect and where to find an installation. It is open towards many interpretations. In this paper we present a model for staging and how we worked with staging of two interactive installations in different exhibition situations, to provoke and motivate different interpretations, expectations and interactions. We argue for staging as a communicative strategy to attract and motivate diverse audiences and user groups to collaborate and co-create through interpretation and interaction. Fu...
Universal Design 2021: From Special to Mainstream Solutions
Technology has potential for improving the lives of persons with severe disabilities. But it’s a ... more Technology has potential for improving the lives of persons with severe disabilities. But it’s a challenge to create technology that improves lives from a person’s own perspective. Co-design methods have therefore been used in the design of Assistive Technology, to include users in the design process. But it’s a challenge to ensure the quality of participation with persons with significantly different prerequisites for communication than ourselves. It’s hard to know if what we design is good for them in the way they themselves define it, in a communication situation, which has to be significantly different than traditional co-design. In this paper, we present a new approach to co-design with persons with severe disabilities. We call this process “trans-create”, based on the creative translation we use when translating between cultures. We found that by using familiar artifacts that could be added and removed in the co-design process, we had a language for communication. By adding a ...
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2016
Everyone has a right to take part in cultural events and activities, such as music performances a... more Everyone has a right to take part in cultural events and activities, such as music performances and music making. Enforcing that right, within Universal Design, is often limited to a focus on physical access to public areas, hearing aids etc., or groups of persons with special needs performing in traditional ways. The latter might be people with disabilities, being musicians playing traditional instruments, or actors playing theatre. In this paper we focus on the innovative potential of including people with special needs, when creating new cultural activities. In our project RHYME our goal was to create health promoting activities for children with severe disabilities, by developing new musical and multimedia technologies. Because of the users' extreme demands and rich contribution, we ended up creating both a new genre of musical instruments and a new art form. We call this new art form Embodied and Distributed Parallel DJing, and the new genre of instruments for Empowering Mu...
Proceedings of the Audio Mostly 2016 on - AM '16, 2016
Nordes, Mar 31, 2011
Montage in cinema means to mount images and sounds from different sources, that are interpreted t... more Montage in cinema means to mount images and sounds from different sources, that are interpreted together and whose oppositions drive the story further. In this paper we develop the montage concept further for co-creation in interactive, tactile, spatial cross-media. As case we use the design of the interactive, tangible, cross-media installation ORFI. ORFI is developed to facilitate collaboration and co-creation between children with severe disabilities and their care persons. In this paper we focus on how we have designed for interactive montage. We present two main types of interactive montage, close and shifted in three dimensions (spatial, temporal and actorial). With the first we mean spatial and temporal closeness, depending on the roles users take and the interpretations they make during interaction. With shifted we mean how to use spatial and temporal shifting and distance between the media elements in space and over time, depending on the users' roles and interpretations. All this to encourage cocreation over time, between a variety of users in different situations.
Music Health Technology and Design, 2014
Staging is the creative act of showing something to an audience. When staging, the artist chooses... more Staging is the creative act of showing something to an audience. When staging, the artist chooses and creates the context, situation and structure of the presented object, play or installation. The chosen context and situation provide background for the audience interpretations. Meaning is co-created between the artist and audience, based on the cultural and individual understanding of the context and situation. The term installation is open, ambiguous and undefined. One does not completely know what to expect and where to find an installation. It is open towards many interpretations. In this paper we present a model for staging and how we worked with staging of two interactive installations in different exhibition situations, to provoke and motivate different interpretations, expectations and interactions. We argue for staging as a communicative strategy to attract and motivate diverse audiences and user groups to collaborate and co-create through interpretation and interaction. Fu...
In this paper we describe an application model for a collaborative narrative in a multimodal tang... more In this paper we describe an application model for a collaborative narrative in a multimodal tangible user interface. We investigate how a story can be developed in negotiation between three users. By collaborating the users create a soundtrack and negotiate the next video sequence. We developed rhetorical principles for editing moving image material for a node based interactive system. We present a new concept of quality in the user experience that we define as ambiguity, user experience caused by the tension between complexity, control and risk.
ABSTRACT In this paper we present some of the challenges we approached in order to design and dev... more ABSTRACT In this paper we present some of the challenges we approached in order to design and develop interactive experience environments in textile. Our interactive environments are created to facilitate communication on equal terms through music, between children with ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2012
ABSTRACT We present a novel approach towards understanding and design of interactive music techno... more ABSTRACT We present a novel approach towards understanding and design of interactive music technology for people with special needs. The health effects of music are well documented, but little research and interactive music technology has been developed, for Music Therapy and health improvement in everyday situations. Further, the music technology that has been used, exploits little of the potential current computer technology has to offer the Music and Health and Music Therapy fields, because it is designed and used based on a narrow perspective on technology and its potential. We present and argue for a broader understanding of music technology for empowerment and health improvement, building on a multidisciplinary approach with perspectives from Tangible interaction design, empowerment and resource oriented Music Therapy. We call this approach Musicking Tangibles, inspired by Christopher Small's term "musicking". We also present two designed Musicking Tangibles, and argue for their empowering qualities based on user observations.
The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio, 2014
Digital Creativity, 2003
In this paper we want to explore Field as a concept and as a metaphor for understanding interacti... more In this paper we want to explore Field as a concept and as a metaphor for understanding interactive systems. By interactive systems we mean both sys-tems and artworks, where the user by interacting changes the course of events. We intend to show why we need new terms and why we ...
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Papers by Birgitta Cappelen