Title }{

Subtitle The sound representation of altered communication

Applicant KANG, Eunsu

Objective(s) of study

The project aims to install a real-time interactive medium that will allow participants to reflect upon the unsettling nature of mediated communication.

Background/content of investigation

The title }{ was chosen to resemble and conjure up the faces of two different communicants facing each other. The sense of irony embedded in this symbol is that the way in which the two faces are juxtaposed produces a false impression of unity, while in fact it fails to create a communal space, a zone illustrated in the symbol of {}. I intend to ascribe the title }{ to an alienated mode of communication that is being prompted by audio-visual media technologies. The alternative to }{ is {}, which represents a mode of communication that could foster communal and collective spirits.

Human communications, face-to-face or mediated, necessarily involve various types of miscommunication and distortion. However, the gulf intrinsic to human communication has dramatically widened with the exponential increase of mediated communications, such as computers, cellular phones, cinema, and video games. While the media of communication facilitate human connections beyond the limitations of space and time, they scarcely help promote the effort to achieve sincere and meaningful communication among people. On the contrary, they often impede construction of communities and interfere with the desire to develop genuine human relationship.

In my project, I would like to demonstrate that a medium, often invisible and imperceptible, shapes and alters the substance and structure of what is intended by an interlocutor. With this goal, I place a transparent panel between two interlocutors, whose voices will be mediated (distorted) by two built-in microphones attached to both sides of the transparent panel. The microphones are connected to a remote, hidden computer, which in turn distorts the tone, voice, and even content of what is uttered by the interlocutors. The participants will find their voices are utterly distorted and may perhaps realize that the microphone-filtered and computer-altered voices are no longer their own. My intention in this setting is to allow participants to re-examine the risk of technologically mediated communications, which not only condition but also drastically alter the true meanings they wish to convey.

Research approach and procedures

This project represents a situation in which two people talk with each other in everyday life. When participants come into the installation space, they see nothing different with the common situation except for one small transparent panel which is hanging in the space. The panel is transparent and thin enough for the participants to feel that they are not separated from the interlocutor in the space.

One participant will be induced to talk to the other participant on the other side of the panel. Once an interlocutor starts to talk to the other, the latter one hears the altered voice of the first person. It is expected that the participants will be taken by surprise for the first time, and then, continue talking enjoying the various vocal transformations.

The panel is a combination of two SoundVu loudspeakers attached to cover up both sides of a transparent material (glass, Plexiglas, etc). SoundVu is a transparent ultra-thin loudspeaker through which the interlocutor can see the other person. Two very small microphones are used to capture the conversation from both sides of the panel, and the inputs from these microphones are fed to a real-time voice transformation program realized using SuperCollider or Max/MSP sound processing environment. The processed voices are projected to the other end of the panel by transparent SoundVu loudspeakers.

The procedure of this project is as follows:

1) Production of a real-time sound transformation program

2) Installation prototyping and construction of the final version

3) Exhibition of the complete project and interaction with participants

Schedule of research

-June-August 2004: Production of a real-time sound transformation program

-September 2004: Installation Experiments

-October 2004: Exhibition and recording the participantsí reaction

My qualifications and preparation for this project

I achieved a MFA degree at Ewha Womans Univ. in Korea in 2000 and I am currently studying at the Media Arts and Technology Graduate Program at UCSB. As a media artist, I have been invited to more than 50 exhibitions and film festivals with my media art works during the last 6 years.

Most of my art works are conceptually and/or methodologically related to questions about ëcommunicationí. For example, ëUnití (2001) is a web project which shows two heads that eternally cannot approach each other. It symbolizes an insulated zone in-between people who try to communicate with each other. Another project, ëPossible and substantial in-betweens of misreadingí (2003) is an emailing project which has repeated processes of translation between Korean and English via email. I use language, one of the most important communication(s), as a medium of culture and seek to demonstrate how languages create possible and substantial areas of misreading when they are translated repeatedly. In the ëVideo works are now on saleí (1999-) project, I have been selling video tapes which contain my video art works directly to audiences since 1999. By purchasing this video, audiences can watch my works at home instead of a gallery. This project is intended to show an alternative way of communication between audiences and art works. ëThe unknown zone_MOBILEí (2003) is my third solo exhibition which was held on cellular phones. Audiences watched my animations on their personal cell phone over a wireless internet. This project shows an alternative way of communication between audiences and art works as well. ëThe unknown zoneí (2002) and ëThe unknown zone IIí (2003) are my two other solo exhibitions. The title, ëthe unknown zoneí is the main subject for my art works. It indicates an area for escaped beings that have been shunned by society because of their differences and/or the impossibilities of communication.

In preparation for this proposed project, I have researched the technologies and decided to use the SoundVu loudspeakers as main equipment for this installation. I have conducted a survey for the resources of a real-time sound transformation program. I will collaborate with another MAT student to develop this program. Investigation of various voice transformation techniques, prototyping design and equipment selection has been started.

Anticipated results and significance of results

The result of this project is a real-time interactive media installation. The only visible installation setting is a small transparent panel between two participants (interlocutors). When they talk, the panel (SoundVu loudspeaker) reproduces transformed sounds from their voices. This interactive performance presents the reality of human communication. In other words, what I would like to demonstrate in this project is that a medium, often invisible and imperceptible, shapes and alters the substance and structure of what is intended by an interlocutor.

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