Future Screens NI – Future Creatives Award

On 2nd Feb 2021 Professor Paul Moore, the director of Future Screens NI met with the 20 awardees via a Zoom meeting. I am deeply honoured to be among the 20 researchers who won this award. 

My work is dominated by participatory design methodologies. This means I design software with musicians with disabilities rather than for. During a global pandemic this is very tricky. We have been working hard using Zoom and screen sharing but eventually the musicians will need to evaluate the software in a more in depth manner. 

This award will allow me to purchase extra VR equipment (HMD’s and gaming laptops) to enable the participants in this research to fully engage with the design process. A simple 2D desktop design might be possible using screen sharing but my project involves VR and embodied metaphors of music. It is nearly impossible for musicians with disabilities to fully describe their embodied experiences without experiencing the immersivity of VR in this project. This will all be possible because WithFeel VR is designed for ensemble performance, i.e. it is networked.

Tech purchases like these don’t come lightly. They will be around after my PhD is finished and will allow us to continue our research into the future with new accessible methods of music creation and performance.