Abstract
This article calls attention to the hybrid genre of voice-based performances and its blending of the supposed binaries of human and machinic speech. Using the concept of panophonia, the author refers to the animatronic sculptures of speaking figures created by Ken Feingold and to Mark Böhlen’s talking robots. Through their comparative analysis, the author explores different poetic metalanguages both artists create to deconstruct communicative structures that demarcate post-human era.
Highlights
Este artigo chama a atenção para o género híbrido de performances vocais que misturam os supostos binários da fala humana e maquínica
According to Connor, the proliferation of technical devices designed for reproducing, generating and transmitting voices affects the sonic dimension of contemporary culture in such a way that the term schizophonia is out of date; it does no longer properly describe the condition we are all living in — the condition in which prerecorded and synthesized voices have multiplied to such an extent that they create a peculiar “phonesthetic effect” in which the aforementioned voices “rather than being exiled from their origins”, “find a way of being at home everywhere” (Connor 2012, 8)
If we consider aurature the critical expression of the panophonic condition, these linguistic performances — transacted between the users of the Alexa skill The Listeners (2015)3 and the Amazon Echo’s vocal identity — would be one of the most compelling instances of the mixed economy of voice
Summary
Este artigo chama a atenção para o género híbrido de performances vocais que misturam os supostos binários da fala humana e maquínica. The term schizophonia refers to the generalized condition in which recorded sounds, in particular voices, split off from their sources (bodies), are brought out of the context of the original environments, making the listeners experience the moments of vocal uncanny. Connor uses the concept of “vicariances” from Michel Serres’ The Parasite to describe this new panophonic system of production, distribution and reception of voice: The very same technological ventriloquism which once made a fetish of the voice acts to disenchant it, making it less and less apprehensible in itself, or able to speak in its own voice. Cayley’s The Listeners project demonstrates potential for practices in “transactive synthetic language in aurality” (Cayley 2017b) and is at the cutting edge of experimental language art
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