Voices and Voids

2021

Voices and Voids is an interdisciplinary research project that explores the hidden dimensions of voice assistant systems through experimental performance, digital art, and data-driven soundscapes. The project investigates the intimate, laborious, and surveillant aspects of AI-powered voice technologies, revealing how they shape—and are shaped by—our everyday interactions. Through twelve performative vignettes, the work examines themes such as the hidden labor behind voice assistants, the intimacy of voice interactions, and the creative potential of voice data.

As part of the project, I contributed the piece Play the Earth, a collection of human-machine generated poetry. The piece involved fine-tuning a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) trained on voice assistant data logs sourced from MTurk workers. This model generated poetic, eerie, and sometimes nonsensical utterances, highlighting both the algorithmic constraints of machine learning and the strange familiarity of AI-generated speech. Through this work, the project critically engages with voice assistants not as technologies embedded in a broader system of data commodification, automation, and cultural production.




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