‘his voice’ is an ongoing project that has a number of iterations and outcomes. It was prompted by a request from Counter: Plymouth Art Book Fair 2015, where the organisers asked me to create a performance for the launch party.
A body of text gathered via online searches for “his voice sounded like” was edited to develop two- or three-word phrases. These phrases were then used to search Twitter. In the live event the outcome of this search process is converted to audio using text-to-speech software. This audio is delivered via headphones to the performer who attempts to speak it to the audience.
The material gathered as part of the performance making process was then formatted as a set of four A6 booklets and a series of A5 cards which were launched at the Book Fair. The project continues to develop in new works, with plans to make a series of audio pieces, and other print work.
The performance of ‘his voice’ has been presented at:
Counter Plymouth Art Book Fair, Karst, Plymouth (October 2015)
Studio 74, Exeter Phoenix (December 2015)
The Other Room, Manchester (February 2016)
Sea Change Festival, Totnes (August 2016)
Language Game{s}: Poetry, Logic and Artificial Language, Chelsea College of Arts, London (May 2017)
Other Codes / Coid Eile: Digital Literatures in Context, NUI Galway (May 2017)
dataAche: DRHA2017, Plymouth (September 2017)
Photos: Dom Moore
More on the book works and publications here.
A recording of the performance of ‘his voice’ at The Other Room is accessible here: www.youtube.com
Commissioned by Counter Plymouth Art Book Fair 2015
Software developed by Neil Rose.