Experience designers Yuri Suzuki, Olivier Bau and Ivan Poupyrev at Disney Research have made an interactive installation that turns sound into touch and back again in a synthetic synesthesia of sorts. A microphone records sounds which are subsequently mixed into inaudible haptic signals. The signals can then be felt by a person holding the microphone, and transmitted to others through touch. The transmissions become audible if the second person is touched near his or her ear, as its otherwise soundless vibrations once again become sound-waves.

The experiment literally alters the sensation (and substance) of touch, and its namewas chosen because, in Japanese, it translates as the cultural means of “communication through unspoken mutual understanding.” Ishin Denshin has myriad future applications in a number of interface design scenarios, but perhaps its most interesting potential implications are for enhanced communication among individuals with hearing and other sensory impairments.