A quest for my 'Holy Grail'

[Nederlandse vertaling volgt nog...]

Great news! Starting out from very different locations and traveling in opposite directions, Rene and Tanja traveled 27 hours and I traveled some 24 hours (19 of them in the air), to find each other at the airport in Los Angeles. If that isn't a miracle...?  But WHY?  Because of an age-old problem for which deafblind children are asking solutions and for which, I believe, modern IT science and haptic technology can provide answers.  

Multiplier
The PROBLEM is simply this: The communication of Deafblind Persons,  who rely on the sense of touch, cannot be multiplied or used in groups. You cannot "touch" more than one person at the time. A film (or computer) may communicate the experience of one person to many other people and so become the great multiplier. As Deafblind communication is one-on-one, where is, in this case, the multiplier? How can one person (deafblind or not) communicate - not with just one other person but with many deafblind persons - at the same time?  

Walk of Fame
The purpose of our visit to LA was to look at the potential of the film industry to help in our search for better communication for deafblind people. Films typically play for the senses of hearing and visions, but do they also contribute for the sense of feeling?

One starting point was to consult my 'double' SEAN CONNERY who left an impression of his hands and feet in the concrete of Hollywoood's 'Walk of Fame'. ;-)

But how did the Carpenters get there? 
I smiled when I was writing  this, but it is also a kind of melancholy illustration of the above question. How can I share my deafblind friends in the joke? Can I bring them over so they themselves can put their hands where the actors and VIPs put theirs, cementing in their minds the images in the concrete?  

Film School
The famous Los Angeles Film School is the incubator of great names in film-making and in films, such as Moana, Spiderman and Logan. They know all about creating high-tech sensory experiences of the most wonderful imaginary or virtual worlds with marvellous visual and sound effects. However, these are all beyond the experience  of the deafbllind as there is nothing there that appeals to the sense of touch. A better understanding of the arts and technologies of animation, rigging, colour, lighting and 3D presentations only taught us that they cannot be used for the deafblind.

Holy Grail
The integration and use of Haptic science and technologies into the world of film (the capturing, transmission and reproduction of movement, feeling and touch) is, as yet, only  very limited. The various haptic dimensions are only used to measure and artificially add afterwards, if at all. Real time regeneration, multiplication and reception are not yet feasible.
I wonder what the science department of the University of Georgia in Atlanta will contribute to my quest for the 'holy grail' during my upcoming visit.

Br. Andrew