Digital Culture Speaker Series Presentation: Sidney Fels

Abstract: Research at the Human Communications Technology laboratory has been targeting design for human experience and expression. In this presentation, Fels will start with a discussion of gesture-to-speech and voice explorations, including Glove-TalkII and the Digital Ventriloquized Actors. He’ll connect these to other explorations of the new interfaces for musical and visual expression that we have created. He will discuss the lab's work on modeling human anatomy and function, such as speaking, chewing, swallowing and breathing with biomechanical models using the toolkit Artisynth. This work is motivated by the lab's quest to make a new vocal instrument that can be controlled by gesture. Fels will discuss some of the activities being done on some new 3-D displays: pCubee and Spheree. Finally, these investigations will be used to support a theory of designing for intimacy and discussions of perspectives on human computer interaction for new experiences and forms of expression.

Bio: Dr. Sidney Fels has been in the department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia since 1998. He received his doctorate and master's in computer science at the University of Toronto in 1994 and 1990, respectively. He received his bachelor's in electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo in 1988. Fels was recognized as a Distinguished University Scholar at UBC from 2004. He was a visiting researcher at ATR Media Integration & Communications Research Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan from 1996 to 1997. Fels also worked at Virtual Technologies Inc. in Palo Alto, California. He is internationally known for his work in human-computer interaction, biomechanical modeling of human anatomy, and new interfaces for musical expression and interactive arts. He was a principal investigator on the Canadian Networks Centre of Excellence on Graphics, Animation and New Media (GRAND) from 2010-2014. Fels was the Director of the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC) from 2001-2012.