Sounds for Coma X Ali Tocher & Joe Acheson

Random Beauty - Infinitely-varying, dynamic soundscapes for the ICU environment

Infinitely-varying, dynamic soundscapes for the ICU environment, combining sonic therapy and cognitive science

Ali Tocher & Joe Acheson

Sounds for Coma

Start of Residency

End of Residency

Sounds for Coma

In the context of this collaboration, the project is investigating three main axes of research: (1) designing and using sounds as a way to explore states of consciousness in coma (ex. sounds of laughter to see if a patient smiles back). The challenge of this axis is to create sounds (or sound apparatus) that are both emotionally meaningful and possibly personalized for the patient, and at the same type fit the requirements of clinical investigation (e.g. short, repeatable for EEG examinations). Prototypes sounds will be tested in the context of routine electrophysiological examinations in the ICU, in collaboration with doctors from Hospital Saint-Anne (2) creating and using sonic/musical textures to improve the ICU soundscape and provide a more therapeutic environment (ex. spatialized musical textures to decrease anxiety in patients and family). The challenge of this axis is to create sounds (or sound apparatus) that have both a suitable form to be used in a daily clinical environment (e.g. not overwhelming or distracting for the practice of caregivers) and a content that has beneficial properties for the patient recovery (e.g. reducing anxiety, comforting, providing a sense of privacy or safety). Prototype sounds will be tested in the context of IRCAM studios, and may be deployed with custom sound diffusion (multi-speaker, etc.) systems in the ICU. (3) designing more informative and less anxious alarms for ICU scopes and equipments (ex. sound alarms adaptive to actual medical emergency). The challenge of this axis is to create alarm sounds (or sound apparatus) that are both distinctive and informative (e.g. one should not miss a critical alarm) and that improve the environment (e.g. by facilitating the attribution of a given alarm to a given piece of equipment, avoid unnecessary call of attention, decrease anxiety). Sound prototypes will be tested in the lab, and their integration in actual medical equipement will be attempted in collaboration with technical staff at the Saint-Anne Hospital.

Random Beauty - Infinitely-varying, dynamic soundscapes for the ICU environment

Random Beauty is a collaboration between Joe Acheson (composer & sound artist), and Ali Tocher (sound designer and sound artist). They are building a system that takes input in the form of natural sounds and music and outputs therapeutic soundscapes for the ICU environment, with the ability to be controlled by users.
This collaboration pairs them with vaunted institute IRCAM and Hospital St-Anne to try to best design the sonic space of their ICU.
By using cutting edge audio technology created for the gaming industry, Joe & Ali are designing a dynamic soundscape that will be infinitely varying and can be dynamically controlled by staff or patients. The final output will manifest as an app for distribution and playback in hospitals globally.
The challenge of this project will be to interface with IRCAM cognitive scientists, hospital staff and patients to ascertain the design requirements of the ICU and create a soundscape that is both beautiful and therapeutic, while also meeting the constraints of the space.

Ali Tocher & Joe Acheson

Joe Acheson is a musician/composer/producer and sound artist. His main project Hidden Orchestra has seen him tour the world, and a large part of Joe's music is using found sounds. Past commissions include the BBC, National Trust, British Library, and most recently a project for Kew Gardens, working with botanical scientists to depict plant relationships through a periphonic sound/music installation. He's currently working on generative/reactive music governed by conditional logic for a computer game project.

Ali Tocher is a sound designer and sound artist. His professional career sees him designing and creating the audio for some of the UK largest indie game studios. His artist vent has been, since his sonic experience during the birth of his first child, focused on therapeutic audio for the medical industry.

http://joeacheson.com/

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Random Beauty is a collaboration between Joe Acheson (composer & sound artist), and Ali Tocher (sound designer and sound artist), and IRCAM and Hospital St-Anne to try to best design the sonic space of their ICU, especially for people that are in coma. By using cutting edge audio technology created for the gaming industry, Joe & Ali designed a dynamic soundscape that infinitely varies and can be dynamically controlled by staff or patients to improve the soundscape of the ICU environment. The final output manifests as an app for distribution and playback in hospitals globally. The challenge of this project was to interface with IRCAM cognitive scientists, hospital staff and patients to ascertain the design requirements of the ICU and create a soundscape that is both beautiful and therapeutic, while also meeting the constraints of the space.

While the ICU environment brought a lot of unexpected challenges to the co-creation team, the prototype that has been developed during the residency is currently being tested in St Anne hospital. Some early and very encouraging results are already available in the public report, highlighting lessons learned from the residency, and future steps for the residency. By bringing their expertise in sound design, the artists were able to provide a relevant attempt to improve the ICU soundscape, with benevolent facilitation from the Tech Project team. If the app developed turns out to be both pleasant, therapeutic and easy to interface, it might become a tremendous innovation for the hospitals and be integrated in many ICU.

The innovative process was reinforced by the “design research” approach of the artists: research, quick prototyping, testing. The partners are currently in discussions as to the next stages of the project, formalizing the structure of their activities and relationships, considering perhaps starting up a joint business, or the creation of a monetized app (for the general public, whose goal would be to combat anxiety and help relaxation) to help fund the benevolent medically-focused one (for the global healthcare system).

Interview with Ali Tocher, Joe Acheson and Jean-Julien Aucouturier at CENTQUATRE-Paris, during the STARTS Residencies Days 2020

Read the final report