Cacophonic choir

Abstract

Cacophonic Choir is an interactive sound installation aimed at bringing attention to the firsthand stories of sexual assault survivors and the way such stories may be distorted by the media and in online discourse. The work is composed of nine vocalizing physical agents distributed in space. Each agent tells a story. Altogether, from a distance, the viewer hears an unintelligible choir---the stories are fragmented and the voices distorted. As the viewer approaches an agent, the story becomes sonically and semantically more coherent. When in the agent's personal space, the viewer can hear the firsthand account [1] of a sexual assault survivor. The work employs several digital media techniques, including machine learning, physical computing, digital audio signal processing, and digital design and fabrication. Agents are fitted with ultrasonic sensors and respond to a viewer approaching it in three ways simultaneously. First, the narrative becomes more coherent, reflecting how stories become distorted by the media. This is achieved by adjusting the accuracy of a generative machine learning algorithm that we designed and trained on the anonymous accounts of more than 500 sexual assault survivors. Second, to express how survivors are silenced, the voices are treated by a granular synthesis algorithm that generates a stuttering and halting effect that decreases as the viewer approaches the agent. Third, the individual form of each agent becomes revealed as the result of it illuminating itself from within, enabling the viewer to see through the soft silicon shell to the digitally fabricated organic form inside. Via these interactions, the work embodies the stories of sexual assault survivors and how these stories are obscured and distorted in online public discourse.