Talk to liminilians

-for an omnivorous and inclusive communication system
- Vidya Lalgudi Jaishankar, Research Artist ,
- Masters thesis (MA Art & Science), Central Saint Martins, UAL, London
- Nominated for MullenLowe NOVA Award, 2023.
* Following is a concised version of the research for portfolio purposes.
Individuals with acquired hearing loss rely on a variety of communication cues, including non-verbal signals like gestures, facial expressions, and lip reading, as well as prosodic features in vowel articulation and reception, and cross-modal associations to understand communication in diverse settings.
However, within the current social and cultural context, the prevailing communication system in verbal/hearing communities often assumes that signs, expressions, prosodic features in vowel vocalization, and paralinguistic features are either implied or peripheral to the primary language. The monotonous use of words without accompanying gestures and articulations assumes the listener's reception abilities, creating a vacuum in the conversations especially between hearing and non-hearing agencies.
High frequency hearing loss is one of the common types of hearing loss (Johnson 1977, Shargorodsky et al., 2010). During speech recognition and reception, 'vowels' - lower frequency speech sounds are more audible than 'consonants' and help in sentence intelligibility for people with hearing loss (Kewley-Port et al., 2007).
Vowels are also fundamental in creating a complex language system and are capable of conveying meaning as a standalone unit, as observed in non-human and human primates’ communication (Boë et al., 2017). During spoken language development , infants as early as 3 months old can produce long vowel sounds (Owens, 2005).
1st ITERATION PROTOTYPE
The 1st iteration of the product prototype containing 2 entities (Aaa & Eee ) was exhibited to limited audiences.



2nd Iterative prototype (artwork):
Changes made:
Based on the observations and feedback made during the 1st iteration, changes were made in the dimension to make it more accessible, along with the inclusion of 2 more vowel entities (Ooo & Oh) to have more intractability . The final prototype was displayed in the CSM postgraduate show.
'Talk to Liminilians', A vowel- based Interactive product using artificial intelligence, 2023,
Exhibited in Lethaby Gallery, London for public engagement

- The research paper is under review for publication
THANK YOU!
© 2023 by Vidya Lalgudi Jaishankar