WOW-LOG : Electronic Music Project for Cochlear Implant Users
와우-로그 : 인공와우 장치 사용자를 위한 전자음악 프로젝트
Owing to the technical limitations of cochlear implants, the users of such implants perceive sound and music differently from those with no hearing impairments. While they can perceive and understand sounds in simple conversations, cochlear implant users have a hard time perceiving music with various ranges. Therefore, they cannot enjoy listening to music. To extend the “joy of music” to cochlear implant users, they must be able to share and understand different experiences in relation to music and sounds.
Since April 2019, composer WONWOORI has been studying cochlear implant users and various methods to transmit sounds and music to them through the WOW-LOG project. He intends to develop playful media and create music by recreating the audio world of cochlear implant users, using electronic instruments. The composer tried to understand this world of different sounds through musical interactions, and to study the fundamental elements of music for human beings. As a result of finally being able to enjoy music, cochlear implant users could ultimately “develop sound discernment and a sense of hearing.”
This approximately year-long research project on sound and music perception was restructured into a performance. Cochlear implant users undergo an internalization process, in which they explore and compare what they can currently hear and what they will be able to hear in the future, depending on the development of their sense of hearing. This process comprises four steps: developing audio frequency ranges for the hearing-impaired, creating melodies through distinguishable intervals, setting tones that are easy to perceive, and listening to the music performed by cochlear implant users based on the musical elements derived from the preceding process.
©WONWOORI, MIIO, Ji-Yoon Hong
"People who listen by filling in the blanks"
The mechanism through which cochlear implant (CI) users hear sounds, scientifically speaking, entails a “huge amount of information loss.”
However, surprisingly, they can imagine nearly perfect sounds by listening and filling in the blanks, based on their experience and acquired knowledge.
For everyday language, it is easy to fill in the blanks based on experience, but it is difficult to listen to voices or tones they have never heard before. They can listen to music they already know by filling in the blanks, but they cannot do that for music they have never heard before.
What form of music can be designed for these people? How can they enjoy music even if they have never heard it before? CI users might need the kind of music that is good to hear and can be heard even if there are many blanks.