Sound and power

Abstract

The two sections of this paper are the outcome of a first iteration of my academic and artistic research begun in 2017 on the so-called “language and accent test” (also known as “voice biometrics”), a proprietary software in use by German immigration authorities in cases of asylum seekers who arrive in the country without documents. The first part (“das hätte...”) explains my process of transposing (aesthetically, technically, and discursively) what is meant by machine listening when set against human listening and vice versa; this process is exemplified through two works – a three-channel installation for computerized voices, and a composition and performance for a trio of voices. The second part (“On the Endless Infrastructural Reach of a Phoneme”) focuses on revealing the dramaturgy and scenography implicit in the process of language testing, in which the presence of a telephone - a device that evokes specific memories about human interactions - is the guiding line for a narrative of how this process precisely designates the same figure it wishes to reveal. Both sections might be understood as rehearsals for a deeper understanding of the relationship between listening and immigration processes in Europe, in which the idea of “origin” is seen as intrinsically tied to the body (and subsequently to the voice), yet only insofar as such a “body” refers to the “Other” that the borders of “Fortress Europe” wish to always keep at the margins.