After making the 4 variations of the teeth, altering the tongue into different positions that would have an effect on how the sound of the voice is generated. I then transferred these into .stl files to create solid objects, when previewed in finder these give an interesting effect and a slight otherness when they are seen from an unexpected angle.

A test to see the different formations of the inner cavity of the mouth and duplications of the full object. When you begin to add more faces it starts to create the effect of a choir, also by adding more faces the gender of each becomes more and more blurred and it will be interesting to test this when there are different faces involved. The notion of the removal of gender is akin to the cyborg theory and the manipulation of the voice, with things such as auto-tune, will again remove the clear boundaries of gender that we currently perceive.

The formation of the faces in either groups of three,  to create a chord, or groups of twelve, to create an octave. Or four groups of three as a combination of both. Then the different speakers can be set up to output a certain note and manipulate the voice as it is fed through it.

Taking the idea of the internal cavity of the mouth being created entirely by a machine as a contrast to the organic origins of the external space of the mouth and face, I took this further by adding in all the elements of the internal anatomy. I modelled the tongue, tonsils, uvula, soft palate and connective tissue when the mouth is stretched open. As the shape of the inner cavity of the mouth and things such as the placement of the tongue affect the voice, it will be interesting to test this by changing different aspects for each variation.

Altering the shape and placement of the tongue, this may change the way sound would resonate through the space:

As an extension to the previous experiment exploring the mouth, taking the external space and using Photoscan as an intervention device to take the human to a cyborg hybrid or organism (human) and machine (3D object), I decided to focus on the internal space of the mouth, teeth etc. This time however, instead of translating the human to object I began by creating the human mouth in a machinic space. I created a 3D model of the gums and teeth using Blender, sculpting the internal cavity to resemble that of ‘reality’.

This model was then added to the Photoscan cyborgic external mouth, creating an additivism of organism and machine that replicates biology without skin. The result feels quite uncomfortable, especially when the texture of the human is applied and the default grey of the teeth are in stark contrast.

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:

Following on from my curation of vocal sounds I decided to experiment myself in layering vocal sounds using a loop pedal. I took the notion of the paralinguistic and began by layering one by one different sounds, pitches, speeds until the point at which the original sounds were taken over, distorted and ultimately intervened into. Intervention here became the loop pedal, creating the ability to build up sounds in a spontaneous composition that isn’t planned and only exists in that moment. The fragility of the voice is emphasised by the ability to become noise, a drone of compressed sounds all fighting for position. We hear by the end that very few of the original sounds can be differentiated, even initially those that are the most piercing. As it moves towards the crescendo, you begin to hear the places in which the sounds come together in agreement, harmonise and become rhythmic and also where they are in dissonance, where they clash and fight each other resulting in an uncomfortable listening experience.

The two sound clips both only use vocal sounds without words/language. Then the first video brings in the use of word as part of the layering process, seeing how these can be intervened into by the sounds which we make outside of language. The second video then explores the layering of one sound, building different pitches on top of each other to form a resonance that would be unachievable with a singular voice.

I have begun the curation of vocal sounds from people based on the following categories:

Growl, Mhm (Hmm), Erm (hesitation), Snore, Grunt

Sigh, Yawn, Shhh, Gasp

Speed fast, Speed slow, Volume loud, Volume quiet, Pitch high, Pitch low

Monotone, Sing-song, Breathy, Whisper, Husky, Creaky, Mumble

Laugh, Cry, Cough

Tick, Click, Hiccups, Tutting

Inhale, Exhale

Message sent out:

Hello, my next masters project is on the voice and explorations into the sounds, intonation and objective effects that can be created by it. As such I’d be very grateful if you could take part in the project by recording your voice performing one of the following:

<list>

[The word or phrase can be anything you want, if possible could you record it in your own language and then in English (just to see the differences in translation).] Please could you repeat the sound five times, record it by any means you deem appropriate and then send the sound file to me.

Post production on the recording is entirely your choice as long as the origins of the sound are the human voice, so feel free to experiment. Any questions just let me know.

Thanks so much,

Lou

To explore sound as object I first looked back to my work for Project 1 of objectification through 3D modelling and then 3D printing. This led me to consider the 3D printing of sound and thought this I found the project 3D Printed Record (2012) by Amanda Ghassaei. Here Ghassaei pushes 3D printing to attempt to print sound as reproduced from .wav files. The results are interesting, you can clearly hear the original songs, but they are peppered with additional noise and the sound of the processes used to produce it.

http://www.amandaghassaei.com/projects/3D_printed_record/

The full instructions on how to produce them yourself is here: http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Record/

The process uses a combination of Python (to create a .txt file from the .wav) and then Processing (to convert the .txt into a .stl).

I produced an initial attempt at creating a 3D record using Amanda’s process, taking the words ‘bang’ and ‘whoosh’ as onomatopoeic representations where words resemble the sounds they are describing. The results are interesting and you can see how the grooves of each differ with the different word sounds. Following this it would be interesting to try and push this further as a form of non-representation sound as object, perhaps altering the shape produced or experimenting with the inputs and outputs achieved. Amanda has also adapted the project to work with a laser cutter, which again opens up new avenues to explore materiality and in particular textures as derived from the voice/mouth.

Python:

Processing:

Bang:

.txt file produces from a .wav file (sound as visualised in text):

Whoosh:

.txt file produces from a .wav file (sound as visualised in text):

Visual Interaction

The face, the eyes, the expression are all elements we connect with. They are the external markers of humanity, we understand them, interpret them; we form an initial bond with them above all else. Projecting humanity back on to the object to re-introduce the warmth of the human. The original face of the human is projected back onto the object, moving to look left, right, up and down in sequence. This can then be interacted with using gestures through a leap motion to control the direction the eyes are looking, creating a responsive effect that appears to understand and interpret action.

Communication Interaction

Humour, sarcasm, agitation, antagonism, kindness. These are aspects of humanity considered as the basis of human language, how we communicate and build relationships. Fed by a motion sensor to an Arduino Uno fitted with an LCD display shield, the object can communicate with you. The motion sensor triggers the Arduino to display comments, questions, statements, facts and interacts with the people in its surroundings. It displays elements of wit, understands sarcasm and even attempts to antagonise people with its own opinions.

Heartbeat Interaction

Biological properties that separate animate from inanimate, to have a pulse is to be alive. The object is placed on a bass amplifier playing the rhythm of a heartbeat; creating a haptic interaction where the object can be touched to feel its pulse. Inviting the tactile and exposing the materiality of the object by allowing it to be viewed in a different way through touch.

In order to present the work an exhibition became the natural output, alongside Adrian Rowan and Alexandra Taylor on MA Photography we devised Primordial Soup: A Joint Exhibition. As a way to showcase the work we had produced so far and invite others in to the conversation, this exhibition was a natural step. With interactive pieces this output provided the necessary human interaction needed, allowing others to enter in to my research space to play and experiment as I have been doing. The three objects were placed on plinths across two rooms, giving space for each object to be viewed from all angles. Explored from all perspectives. The necessity for users to be able to get close to the objects dictated the layout, the objects are meant to be explored and scrutinised, they demand to be seen up close, touched, experienced. The placing of them on plinths formed a clear path around each object, and as such the rooms became as much a part of the object as the objects themselves. They became self contained spaces where the objects could exist, a parallel space where the beginning and end can intersect in the presentation of the human, the object and the in-between other once the human had been added back in. I sought for the rooms to have an eerie quality, akin to the feeling of discovery in a crystalline cave, to instil this sense of discovery in the user. Inspired by the use of diffused lighting in the display of Vinyl, Terror- & Horror by Camilla Sørensen and Greta Christensen at Röda Sten as part of the Reverberations exhibition, used here to focus you in on the horror in the sounds they were creating. From this the rooms were dark with careful ambient light to highlight the objects within, this worked to display how the materiality of the objects had a sheen and a fragility.

The concept for the exhibition derived from a biological theory to explain the origin of life on Earth, taken by us and re-interpreted as the primordial soup of ideas as the origin for our combined artistic practice. Isolated elements are added to the soup and combine until our art comes crawling onto the seashore and into your experiential space, out of the depths of our creative ocean.

Primordial Soup

noun

A solution rich in organic compounds in the primitive oceans of the earth, from which life is thought to have originated.

Here we presented the viewer with our soup; the atmosphere of our individual artistic practices, when exposed to the energy of the group, produced an exciting compound of our combined lines of enquiries through various spaces, forms, ideas, media. We accumulated these in our soup, concentrated at a location and within the rooms of the exhibition. The transformation of our individual practices into a unified whole gave birth to a new life.

Our Primordial Soup.