This blog will answer the last question for this project, What will the audio paper sound like?
This audio paper is in opposition to itself, disagreeing with the notion that an audio paper is appropriate as an alternative to a written dissertation in this sound arts course. My idea for the form it’ll take is one that tries to imitate what a written paper is like while rejecting the natural inclinations of an audio paper.
One aspect I wanted to focus on was making the piece formal and impersonal. Audio papers lend themselves to performative ascetics as speaking has a great number of nuances to it, what if I could eliminate that problem? Ai-generated voices, while still expressive compared to writing, AIs find it a lot harder to vary the tone, texture, dynamics and personality of speech like a human can. This means that the audio paper will be almost as idiosyncratic as a written dissertation.
The ai-voice line will be created using a few different online text-to-speech programs and then spliced together in audacity.
Another important part of audio papers is that they render affects and sensations, something that I do not want to do as it clashes with what I talk about in the audio paper. So no sound design, music or sound effects other than the ai voices.
Something I’m choosing to follow in terms of the 8 audio paper tenets is the aspect of multiple protagonists. I’m trying to make the audio paper detached from myself; however, I believe that this includes not having hallmarks of myself in the paper. What I mean by this is that I plan to use a female voice for the majority of the paper. This makes sense as it’s known that female voices are more convincing and it shows that I am not present as a character in the paper at that point, showing that I don’t want the audio paper to be appreciated in context of myself.
However, it is still an audio paper and I believe it is very important to have a narrative show in the content and the form it takes. Despite trying to make the piece non-idiosyncratic, the topic is already personal to me and the last section of the paper is devoted to my reaction to the audio paper option in the 3rd year. In that section, the voice will switch to a male ai-voice, I don’t use my own voice because I honestly like the ascetics of the ai-voice and I still don’t want to make it about myself strangely.
Why an ai-voice and not have someone else record these lines for me? In this audio paper, I am critical of the course I am on but as a student in an undergraduate course and I wonder if despite my criticisms having truth in them, they fall on dead ears because of who I am at this university. Ai-voices try to mimic human voices and because of that, they are stereotypical and unoriginal. They could represent anyone.
These ai-voices mask the identity of the creator of the audio paper so that the listener can ask themselves, “if I didn’t hear this from a student but something whom I respected or who is knowledgeable, what would I think about what is said in this audio paper? What would I do in response?”
My audio paper is ignorant and lacks the context that the tutors of the course have in terms of creating a university curriculum. I just hope that the form of the paper will allow for the content of the paper to not fall on deaf ears and just be marked.