hi all
I'm particularly interested in the affects on speech and language that come about through various ways of working with voice recognition software - and think this was particularly pertinent, Victoria -
The deeper significance is that a person working with your piece would
> eventually learn what words have problems being
> translated and would alter the text of what they spoke into the machine so
> the translation would come out correctly and still preserve the
> intention of the speaker. In that case the human alters their behavior or
> speaking patterns to conform to the machines needs. It's like learning to
> use a tool properly.
I'm interested what comes about over time - the long-standing changes in the way we communicate - which this hints at above. This is what I was trying to get at when I talked/asked about structures - I'm working on some algorithms with someone who used to work at Goldman Sachs for a project and it's v interesting.
and to this:
Is that good? Is that bad? Is it Plato's shadow world?
I would go all Baudrillard on you.. and say it's layers upon layers of simulacrum - all augmented, and we evolve with the tools we use - bringing forth new subjectivities.
I've just curated a short programme here in London for DRAF - opening on Saturday if anyone's around - there's some great people in it, and also generally in the programme over the two days starting tomorrow:
Oral Backstory
by Erica Scourti live performance. A
feedback loop produced by reading the past month’s search history into Google’s
voice activated search function, activating voice as both semantic and
operative, and generating text and image through an interplay of spoken
language, voice recognition software and search algorithms.
Robots
Building Robotsby Tyler
Coburn - live reading by Chris
Polick - meditates on the “lights out” factory, so-named for the lack of
need for regular, human supervision. The book takes form as a travelogue of
improvised performances, which Coburn conducted at a science park in Southern
Taiwan; rumour has it that a robotics company is presently building one such
facility on site. During a long walk through the park’s grounds, the author
considers literary and philosophical speculations on labour, machinic
intelligence and the “automatic factory”: an enduring fiction gradually
creeping into reality.
Error-Correction: an introduction to future
diagrams (take 3): Impossible Structures “the eye that remains of the me that
was I”HD video (08:19 mins) and pamphlet (script) by Ami Clarke. (Error-Correction
App – available soon). A series of
experimental takes of an on-going enquiry into diagrams, that reference and
include appropriated texts, whereby the voice, through language, is constituted
“between someone else’s thoughts and the page’, and considers the production of
meaning through inference, association, paradox, and contradiction.
GH - On your comments regarding *Toast - *Text-to-speech is so little used
because it still hasn't been perfected to work smoothly. I like your
comment about the user altering his behavior to conform to how the
translation works, learning the tool and finding out what works and what
doesn't - the machine and the user would be creating their own language
that finds a middle ground of functionality/understanding. I would like to
try this with the device, though I realize that the language that is
created is going to be totally customized to the person using it.
Jack, you mention "enacting versus watching". In some of my works,
including *Vacant Quarters* http://blurringartandlife.com/vb/wallace.html,
the visitor's face and act of looking are the interface that
starts/continues the interaction (which here results in a conflagration of
circus wagons). In *Vacant Quarters* I am exploring looking itself as
a destructive act (which it can be when the act of staring into media
perpetuates further creation/display of media).
And GH - an exhibition of the 1400 list members would be epic, and based on
this discussion and others, q u i t e - b r o a d in subject matter and
approach.
Victoria
On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 11:56 AM, gh hovagimyan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Victoria & List,
>
> On Mar 25, 2014, at 10:10 PM, Victoria Bradbury wrote:
>
> spoke other languages as their native tongue. Those living in Beijing
>> were
>> already accustomed to crossing cultures and language barriers, so the
>> concept of words being lost in translation resonated with them. An
>> unexpected outcome was that those who were able to read and speak both
>> English and Mandarin seemed to gain the most satisfaction out of
>> interacting with *Toast* because the "success" or "failure" of the
>> translation was evident.
>>
>
> I think you could call the software a co-performer. The software does have
> "performativity"
> based on it's classic definition. Interestingly, the creative parts are
> the mistakes the code makes.
> This hooks into the neural paths of language especially wordplay and puns.
> The piece works because the code is imperfect.
> Why is it imperfect? Because the code can't laugh at it's own mistakes and
> learn from them.
> The deeper significance is that a person working with your piece would
> eventually learn what words have problems being
> translated and would alter the text of what they spoke into the machine so
> the translation would come out correctly and still preserve the
> intention of the speaker. In that case the human alters their behavior or
> speaking patterns to conform to the machines needs. It's like learning to
> use a tool properly.
> A larger discussion is how computer interfaces are altering human
> language. You know tweets, technical jargon, translation software. Also
> how human behavior has become altered.
> If you walk down the street today in New York, i/2 the people are looking
> at their cellphones. Their sense of being and place is split between the
> real world and the data-sphere.
> Is that good? Is that bad? Is it Plato's shadow world?
Banner Repeater
Platform 1
Hackney Downs Railway Station
Dalston Lane
Hackney
E8 1LA
www.bannerrepeater.org
>________________________________
> From: Victoria Bradbury <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Thursday, 27 March 2014, 15:27
>Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] March Discussion Begins: The Performativity of Code
>
>
>Hi List,
>
>Thanks for your perspective with examples Johannes. I hope to attend one of
>your future performances but can't make it on the 3rd of April. Thanks Jack
>for your explanation of your works and a bit of history (glad this
>discussion is getting you thinking/creating), and thanks Ami for piping in
>and telling us about Banner Repeater and your exploration of transport and
>language performativity through your own work as well as your curatorial
>work at BR. What a unique venue and audience for this kind of work.
>
>GH - On your comments regarding *Toast - *Text-to-speech is so little used
>because it still hasn't been perfected to work smoothly. I like your
>comment about the user altering his behavior to conform to how the
>translation works, learning the tool and finding out what works and what
>doesn't - the machine and the user would be creating their own language
>that finds a middle ground of functionality/understanding. I would like to
>try this with the device, though I realize that the language that is
>created is going to be totally customized to the person using it.
>
>Jack, you mention "enacting versus watching". In some of my works,
>including *Vacant Quarters* http://blurringartandlife.com/vb/wallace.html,
>the visitor's face and act of looking are the interface that
>starts/continues the interaction (which here results in a conflagration of
>circus wagons). In *Vacant Quarters* I am exploring looking itself as
>a destructive act (which it can be when the act of staring into media
>perpetuates further creation/display of media).
>
>And GH - an exhibition of the 1400 list members would be epic, and based on
>this discussion and others, q u i t e - b r o a d in subject matter and
>approach.
>
>Victoria
>
>
>
>On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 11:56 AM, gh hovagimyan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Victoria & List,
>>
>> On Mar 25, 2014, at 10:10 PM, Victoria Bradbury wrote:
>>
>> spoke other languages as their native tongue. Those living in Beijing
>>> were
>>> already accustomed to crossing cultures and language barriers, so the
>>> concept of words being lost in translation resonated with them. An
>>> unexpected outcome was that those who were able to read and speak both
>>> English and Mandarin seemed to gain the most satisfaction out of
>>> interacting with *Toast* because the "success" or "failure" of the
>>> translation was evident.
>>>
>>
>> I think you could call the software a co-performer. The software does have
>> "performativity"
>> based on it's classic definition. Interestingly, the creative parts are
>> the mistakes the code makes.
>> This hooks into the neural paths of language especially wordplay and puns.
>> The piece works because the code is imperfect.
>> Why is it imperfect? Because the code can't laugh at it's own mistakes and
>> learn from them.
>> The deeper significance is that a person working with your piece would
>> eventually learn what words have problems being
>> translated and would alter the text of what they spoke into the machine so
>> the translation would come out correctly and still preserve the
>> intention of the speaker. In that case the human alters their behavior or
>> speaking patterns to conform to the machines needs. It's like learning to
>> use a tool properly.
>> A larger discussion is how computer interfaces are altering human
>> language. You know tweets, technical jargon, translation software. Also
>> how human behavior has become altered.
>> If you walk down the street today in New York, i/2 the people are looking
>> at their cellphones. Their sense of being and place is split between the
>> real world and the data-sphere.
>> Is that good? Is that bad? Is it Plato's shadow world?
>>
>>
>
>
>--
>// Victoria Bradbury
><PROJECTS> www.victoriabradbury.com
>Researcher @ www.crumbweb.org
>New Media Caucus <http://www.newmediacaucus.org> <CommComm>
>Attaya Projects <http://attayaprojects.com> // Collaborator
>
>
>
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