wk12 reflection on current status and next – Goal & KPI

Reflection_

I want to create an experience for audience to go on a journey their voice. My excitement came from trying to bring this experience to an installation from a web experience. The sound engineering part terrified me (exploring MaxMSP, tone.js and p5 func), still. Now I am getting more fun after creating various sketches using deliberately p5/ p5 sound. Moreover, the user journey of what and how to prompt and initiate the experience is not clear to me at the moment and I hope to go deeper to my motivation and metaphor.

Recently, I am feeling quite positive as working on experiment #3 (playback time) & experiment #4 (low band reverse) toward final and put it at an installation scale. I am hoping to do a few user testing (recorded documentations) before Thursday. Meanwhile, I am experimenting with cinematic score as previously mentioned in the “Next” section.

The biggest change so far is to revisit to voiced sound journey using p5 sound and leave p5 func voice re-synthesis aside which I was quite obsessed with it. Not only because is beyond my level of ability to incorporate to my project but also finding more possibility in choreographing with p5 sound effects. After nearly a month of code study, both individual and sessions. During the passing weekend, new prompts were considered to replaced a loaded question of what’s your experience of 2020 in on sentence to something will touch on identity and personal reveal. I am further developing this part to strengthen my concept and project expression. 

Goal_

Create a space for openness and imagination to happen about one’s voiced sound

For the project_ fulfilled means my project is be able to offer to experience one’s voice in an intimate way . Whether audiences with existing knowledge or not can engage the work at a personal level and still want to come back and experience the work again.

For thesis_ fulfilled means a meaningful journey is been perceived and executed, although voice confrontation is personal and universal however, to develop knowledge around our voice is a part of self & identity exploration just like knowing our body.

For personal goal_ fulfilled means that I clearly articulate how my code and decision are made link to a curated user journey that is relevant to my topic. 

For audience_ fulfilled means to be aware, and perceive voice confrontation to develop language(s) to describe one’s voiced sound and voice perception.

Not fulfilled at all: I did not provide a work to inform my audiences about voice confrontation. Hence a journey of sound experience was not appreciated.

KPIs_

After encountering my project, my audience will be aware of their voiced sound hence develop a broader language in describing their perception of voice???

Production timeline_

• week 12 June 7 & 10 – User Testing

1. For this week, I am going to set up basic installation in NYUSH, using experiment #3 & experiment #4 as prototype to conduct user testing.
2. More project development and tweaking during feedback collection in user testing
3. Formulating final expression – uncanny/ relax, personal/ collective 
4. Installation, space and setup
5. Essential features and engagement

• week 13 June 14 & 17 – Final Guidelines & Deliverables

1. Video documentation & Presentation
2. June 17 – Draft of thesis archive materials

• week 14 June 21 & 24 – Final Presentation Rehearsals

1. June 20 – Thesis archive materials submitted
2. June 24 – Final presentation rehearsal

• week 15 June 28, 29 & 30 – Final Project & Presentations

1. June 28/29 – Thesis presentation

Below are some of the feedbacks in the Spring final for myself.

—————————–

End of Spring semester feedback.

Jeremy
Agree with Reine–it’s interesting hearing you speak and talk about the voice, almost as if on the one hand project is rooted in the physical world but metaphor for being comfortable with identity and oneself, you’re speaking to both things, I spent a lot of time recording people’s voice and no one likes their own voice, daily people hate hearing their own voice even professional newscasters there’s something uncomfortable, I wonder if there’s an interesting way you might explore…it seems like you’re on the precipice of something universal of how that experience is, skewing away from exposure therapy, subvert that as a way of demonstrating so you have all this interesting stuff to mask or modulate the voice, same technology to demonstrate and mock up to the audience what–I’m speaking, you all hear me, I’m the outlier, my voice sounds differently, my reason is my skull and cavity adds to that experience that you all don’t experience, so when I hear a recording it’s missing those bone resonance, perhaps another item on the menu for you might be finding a way for all of you to hear what my voice sounds like to me, if that makes sense. And then if I was just thinking of those bone resonance a lot and maybe that’s an avenue you could explore on the digital avenue, but on the physical side if this becomes a physical experience there are speakers that can resonate our bones like the military uses or headsets, might be an interesting technology. Three thoughts, the basic analog of what you’re doing is singing in the shower, sort of what you’re doing is a digital experience correlates the context of their voice along with what Reine said so if you experience with drinking different liquids like apple juice that engineers use to clean to smooth out our voice and gets rids of some weird effects. On the pure technical ends, you’re exploring different sound processing technologies and there’s one, EQ which is sort of like cropping sounds, extenuating certain tones, you might also look into processing FFT maybe you’re familiar with it, it takes components of our voice and resynthesize our voice like a prism almost it breaks it out into parts, by doing that you can manipulate the sound in far more dramatic weighs, EQ modifies the sounds that are there but FFT can move them around. Saw convolution on your list, wasn’t sure if that has a place here, because convolution takes a sound in a new place, but wait that’s the core difference between what I’m hearing and you’re hearing of my voice, a way to use convolution that accounts for that difference

https://p5js.org/reference/#/p5.FFT

From the Coding Train Sound Playlist
17.11: Sound Visualization: Frequency Analysis with FFT – p5.js Sound Tutorial

Reine
The premise is so novel
Since being in isolation and friends abroad, sending voice notes has been in a lot of our conversations, at first it used to be short impersonal notes but they become more personal over time, want someone to get into their own rhythm and speak in their natural rhythm, guiding of people to hear themselves back, truly how their emotions are conveyed, and their accents, you’re kind of honoring a person’s voice, and hearing your own voice there is a beautiful metaphor to that, it’s going to be more recurring to give us a chance to step back and admire or not admire or notice what we haven’t noticed, it reminds me of those personalization quizzes or anything that tells you more about yourself, it’s definitively going to be more personal; starting with how people talk and showing their emotions in certain context, the best way to get someone to unravel is prompt them to share experiences or stories, guide them from impersonal to personal to see the change in their voice, it’ll be a first time speaking alone to a computer or to an AI it’ll sound so different in the beginning than in the end and getting people to expose themselves and allowed to be free, hearing your voice is construed as crazy but it can be honored for what it is and freeing/an amazing thing and can be helpful and vulnerable in that sense with themselves, if you’re comfortable with your voice it’s an underlying theme
Noticed how when I drink water or coffee that plays a factor in that role, to make it a physical experience and manipulate and how the audio can be changed or altered

Andrew
In the experiments we did, what could you do to make my voice sound good to me, which is in part what the thesis is about, so how can you change it and harmonize and I love that idea of a simple letting me hear my voice the way I’m used to it, it’s a nice way to think about it and explore because it is a way, the way we use our voice as a metaphor to say what we need to say