Following on from my experiment in layering the voice using a loop pedal, the objectification of the voice in the isolation of paralinguistic elements then set in repetition over the top of each other, I explored the next vital component of this process. The mouth forms the connection between internal and external, of body and voice, and perhaps can be seen as a border between the two. I decided to take inspiration where I left off with Project 1, by translating the mouth into a 3D object using Agisoft Photoscan. This created an interesting comparison between the notion of borders of internal > external, body > voice, organism > machine. The potential became to either expose the border itself or expose the blurring of such, taking back to the notion of the cyborg and the idea that organism and machine are in conflict in terms of the spaces they exist. Here, however, these spaces are blurring with the use of machinic intervention to confront one with the other, the 3D process thus becomes the intervention and we are being confronted with the increasing ambiguity of the border between natural and artificial.

This process led me to the idea of using 3D prints of the mouth as an amplification device to a small speaker outputting the paralinguistic vocal sounds. Perhaps within this the “natural” outside of the mouth can be fused with an “artificial” 3D rendering of the inside cavity? Many of these can then be created based on the identity of the person who created the vocal sounds, together forming a collective, an ‘us’, or a form of cyborgic choir. Here highlighting the question, what counts as ‘us’? What would deem inclusion in this collectivity? As Donna Haraway posits, the collective is elusive if we only perceive it in the sense of identity, instead the need to view it from a sense of affinity, a coalition through affinity, becomes apparent.

Mock-up of the mouth with the speaker placed behind:

Removal of texture: