Prof. Stefania Serafin (Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark): Sonic interaction design for multimodal environments and first SOUND SIG gathering

19.04.2012 14:00
19.04.2012 16:00

Prof. Stefania Serafin (Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark) will give a talk entitled

Sonic interaction design for multimodal environments

on Thursday April 19, 2012, at 2.15pm Riihi (room I413),
Aalto University, School of Electrical Engineering, Otakaari 5 A, 02150, Espoo.

The duration of the talk will be about 45 minutes. The abstract of the talk and a short bio of Prof. Serafin are provided below.At the same room, between 15:15 - 15:45, we can gather with SIGCHI members interested in SOUND SIG, and coordinate our activities.

Prof. Serafin will act as an opponent in Antti Jylhä´s dissertation on

Friday April 20, 2012 at 12 noon, at S1-Hall (A102)
Aalto University, School of Electrical Engineering, Otakaari 5 A, 02150, Espoo.

The title of the thesis is “Sonic Gestures and Rhythmic Interaction between the Human and the Computer” (in Finnish “Äänieleet ja rytminen vuorovaikutus ihmisen ja tietokoneen välillä”). The supervisor of the thesis is Prof. Vesa Välimäki. More information can be found at http://elec.aalto.fi/en/current/events/vaitos_aanenkasittelytekniikan_alalta-di_antti_jylha/

ABSTRACT

In this talk, Prof. Stefania Serafin will provide an overview of the past and current research she is performing in the Medialogy section at Aalborg University Copenhagen. The use of interactive physics-based auditory feedback in multimodal environments is a common theme in these projects. Prof. Serafin will particularly describe some of the activities performed in the context of the Natural Interactive Walking EU project, which investigated possibilities for the synergy of perception and action in capturing and guiding human walking. She will provide an overview of the work performed by herself and her coworkers regarding the simulation of interactive footstep sounds in multimodal virtual environments. The group has created a physics-based sound synthesis engine, which is able to reproduce footstep sounds on several solid and aggregate surfaces. To control the engine, they have designed several alternative input devices, such as shoes augmented with sensors and floors augmented with microphones. Prof. Serafin will present some of the experiments performed with the developed technology. The overall goal of such experiments is to understand the role of interactive auditory feedback in multimodal walking-based tasks where sound plays an important role.

BIO

Stefania Serafin is Professor with special responsibilities in sound in multimodal environments at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. She has been Associate Professor (2006-2012), and Assistant Professor (2003-2006) at Aalborg University Copenhagen. She received a Ph.D. in Computer Based Music Theory and Acoustics from Stanford University in 2004, and a Master in Acoustics, Computer Science and Signal Processing Applied to Music from Ircam (Paris) in 1997. She has been visiting professor at the University of Virginia (2003), and visiting scholar at Stanford University (1999), Cambridge University (2002) and KTH Stockholm (2003). She is principal investigator for the EU funded project Natural Interactive Walking, and Danish delegate for the EU COST Action on Sonic Interaction Design. Her main research interests are sound models for interactive systems and multimodal interfaces, and sonic interaction design.