Interface Design - Zeitmaschinen
Walls Have Ears
Jason M. Reizner
The recent onslaught of QR technology has meant that the occurrence of visual signifiers which only machines can read and write is becoming increasingly commonplace in areas once solely the realm of the human-readable. Walls Have Ears is a generative installation that gently prods this brave new world of synthetic literacy by also engendering the machine with the ability to listen. Over the duration of Generative Art 2011 in Rome, the machine was continuously overhearing human presenters’ speech direct from the lectern.
In much the same manner humans acquire a foreign spoken language, the most talented artificial speech-to-text transcription relies heavily on situated cognition, and as such, also exhibits the peculiar tendency to hear something other than what was actually said. Interpolating rhythm, cadence and context, the machine builds its own account of what has transpired, and leaves behind a document that is as elastic, disjointed and poetic as any narrative penned by a mere person.
