Interactive Sound Art: ‘Talk to Me’ and ‘Body Echo’

Abstract

This article presents the first part of the practice-based research entitled ‘The Art of Human Voice: Physicality, Meaning, and Identity’. Researchers designed a preliminary investigation focusing on 2 aspects of voice: a) voice wave b) a relation between voice and spatial size inside human body. The researchers applied the investigation into the creation of interactive sound art of which aims are to raise an awareness of human voice and to introduce voice as a subject in Thai contemporary visual art society.

Pattarapong Sripanya explored voice wave in order to transform audience’s voice wave to real-time moving image for Talk to Me (2018) by analyzing the voice with Fast Fourier Transform Algorithm, and then using Max MSP and Processing in transforming the vocal analysis into moving graphic images. Toeingam Guptabutra studied a relation between voice and spatial size inside human body in order to create Body Echo (2018). Speakers were represented as spatial size inside human body, which are of different sizes and complexities. Audience’s voice was played inside these speakers. Audience can listen to his/her different characters of pitches and reverberations. System of the two sound pieces are joined. Audience spoke at a microphone at Talk to Me not knowing that his/her voice was recorded, then listened to the record played at Body Echo.  The sound pieces fully response to the two aims of leaning and open up a new issue ‘voice identity’ for next research steps.