Week 6- Experimenting with Voice

 This week I continued tweaking my code to gauge what outcomes i could expect, which ended up creating even more interesting work. Then I hit a bit of a brick wall. I couldn't quite work out where to take it next. This whole project has felt like one thing lead naturally onto another, then suddenly it stopped.

My work felt like it was missing a certain amount of depth, meaning and relatability. This is when I decided to experiment a bit with AI voice. The kind of voice that Siri or Google translate may use (although a little bit less sophisticated and more basic). I implemented the code and began the process of somehow making it read out the words that my randomly generated poems display. I thought this would be an easy task but it turned out to be a very intricate and difficult one.

Once I got it working I got to play around with the tone/speed of the voice, to ensure it matches the speed at which the drawing generates. This was the fun part of the process, as simply through tone and speed you could create such a wide variety of emotions. I ended up going for a slow, almost creepy, tone of voice to match the methodical, melancholic drawing process.

I ended up showcasing this in my work for my exhibition from home, resulting in a short YouTube clip which features my code running on my PC monitor/TV simultaneously. The code just kept repeating itself over and over again which, without human intervention, would result in a never-ending, "infinite conversation"- the title of the piece. I feel the voices add a whole new dimension to the work for me and I am excited at the new opportunities this may bring. Moving forward I am interesting in creating more complexities within the drawing side of things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl-Lwo9SqNo&t=9s&ab_channel=JoeHowse