Multivocal

People

Alice Emily Baird

Stina Hasse Jørgensen

Frederik Tollund Juutilainen

Nina Cecilie Højholdt

Mads Pelt

What are the politics and aesthetics of synthesized voices? What notions of identity, personhood and will do we ascribe to the synthesized voices communicating with us?

Living in a world where machines are talking to us with voices, personalities and emotional expressions, we believe it is important to discuss questions of representation, character design and aesthetics. Most of the synthesized voices we hear from our mobile phones, smart assistants, and in transportation systems have one vocal identity. This could be different.

[multi’vocal] is an ever-evolving non-binary synthesized voice created by a (digital) community of participants with different age, gender, and geographical origin. We seek to create an open source and participatory alternative to the proprietary voices with singular identities. We present iterations of the voice on events and talks but the voice is currently not available online.

Link to project web page: https://multivocal.org/

Research theme: Exploratory Interaction

Publications

Baird, Alice; Jørgensen, Stina Hasse; Parada-Cabaleiro, Emilia; Cummins, Nicholas; Hantke, Simone; Schuller, Björn. 2018. The Perception of Vocal Traits in Synthesized Voices: Age, Gender, and Human-Likeness, JAES, Audio Engineering Society, vol. 66 issue 4, pp. 277-285.

Baird, Alice; Jørgensen, Stina Hasse; Parada-Cabaleiro, Emilia; Cummins, Nicholas; Hantke, Simone; Schuller, Björn. 2017. Perception of Paralinguistic Traits in Synthesized Voices . Proceedings from the 12th International Audio Mostly Conference.