ZYX

Abstract

The term 'hallucination' is used in relation to both human perception and machine learning. ZYX is a sound work that considers how Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) might be made to hallucinate and how that differs from human hallucination, specifically hallucinations triggered by LSD and grief. The work consists of a voice-over accompanied by filtered speech sounds. Both elements were made through the development and application of an audio filter that overemphasises disfluencies in speech in order to force errors in ASR. The script for the voice-over was written using erroneous output generated this way. Given the problematic ethics of the capitalist development of ASR systems that misrecognise large parts of human speech, the work proposes the forcing of errors as a potential form of resistance—as a disruption to 'smoothness' and also as a generative writing method. The sound piece should be listened to on its own, preferably with your eyes closed. A link to endnotes will appear afterwards.