Our Third Ear aims to create a multi-sensory experience by fusing sight, touch, and sound. By creating a means of physically feeling music, listeners can connect with songs, bands, and individual musicians on a profoundly personal level. The potential for unintended applications like learning to play an instrument, broadening the understanding of music for people with hearing impairments, or providing a means of therapy are also exciting prospects. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the process involved in creating a multi-sensory experience of music from concept to prototype. The culmination of interdisciplinary research and a broad range of creative technologies resulting in a working system. The multi-sensory experience consists of primarily tactile, but also visual responses triggered by music and executed in conjunction with aural music. Tactile investigation involved varied tactile sensations such as vibration, temperature, pressure, proprioception, and touch. Further research questioned the practicality, feasibility, and psychological impacts of using such sensations as well as where on the body such sensations would optimally be received. Visual research involved the visual representation of notes, chords, and sounds, as well as, how music could directly affect visuals in a real time environment. Additional research explored active interaction and passive interaction of visual cues using human computer interfaces. / Master of Fine Arts

Archaeology is a field which has been impacted greatly by digital technology; the new technological instruments are developing both academic research and public mediation. Digital archaeology has been available at the museum for some time, but immersive technologies are recent introductions, which offer new experiences for museum visitors. Even though digital archaeology/virtual heritage have been studied for their technological virtues, the learning opportunities presented to the museum visitor has not yet been examined from a visitor’s perspective. In this dissertation, the visitor experience is the basis of analysis for determining how we can critically assess digital exhibitions using immersive technologies. This study examines if and how critical museology can be successfully applied to immersive digital displays; a detailed analysis of two case studies using VR (high immersion) and AR (low immersion) show that digital experiences are fully capable of communicating cultural content and that these multi-sensory technologies can successfully engage users in the creation of knowledge. The extent of sensory stimuli affecting the visitor is not accounted for in current critical museology, therefore the analysis of this study suggests a number of suggestions for future designs of digital displays using immersive technologies.