User:Angeliki/Grad project loop

what: I want to make visible the human presence in the loop of the communication systems that has been gradually formed the last years of the rising of social media and machines. In our post-human era “we loose the basic distance which makes us human” in “the prospect of the direct link between our brain and the digital network” (The Economist, 2018). It seems that we are more than distant users using a communication tool. We are part of the circuit. Thinking back in time about the communication diagram of Shannon Claude1 the one way communication. The process described in this diagram has become more complex and the new data practices have intervened into the communication system making eternal loops (as shown in the diagram annotated by me). We are already part of it and we cant see it. We are part of the loop, we experience it everyday and we can intervene in it. As Zizek observes, it is very difficult for the common person to understand how algorithms work “but we can easily understand how we are controlled by the digital grid” (The Economist, 2018). I want to highlight several qualities regarding this process, like materiality, time (delay) and embodiment, that are disappearing and altered into this massive and quick automated process. For example, it is commonly unknown that the most important part of making an intelligent ‘assistant’ is the contribution of huge data of human voices. I want to engage with these tools and at the same time to try practices that we can understand where are we in this loop and intervene into it. Speech recognition and analysis tools are trained by a database of 'real' voice samples. These samples come from different sources and communication systems around the world [imitations of conversations, radio broadcasts, telephone conversations, field recordings, readings] sometimes with the permission of the people donating their voice. At the same time these tools (like automatic dialect analysis) are used from states [Germany] to verify the claims of origin of refugees. It is very often that they can get wrong because "Identifying the region of origin for anyone based on their speech is an extremely complex task" and depends on "a wide range of factors". Google also is using voice recordings from other google apps to train its speech-to-text tool.

How: I want to make visible this condition (of human always on the loop) through a collection of material related to trained data of speech recognition tools [voice samples, ways of collection]5 and practices that re-enact the loop with the inclusion of the embodied awareness. These practices may be related to the human processes involved in the loop, like the presence of human annotators [transcription], listening and identifying voices, decoding and encoding but also other elements like the delay in the circuit and the spatial qualities that distort the message. Some voice samples that I found from an organisation involved for the training of a speech recognition tools [pocketsphinx]: And this is an example of a description accompanied these voice samples that shows the way that a voice sample was made: ...Its format consists of invited guests (most often politicians) spontaneously answering topical questions posed by one or two interviewers. The number of interviewees in a single program varies from one to three, but typically, one interviewer and two interviewees appear in the program. The material includes passages of interactive dialogue, but longer stretches of monologue-like speech comprise the majority of the collected data. Radioforum also has an interactive segment where listeners call the studio and ask their own questions. This may be part of the practices that will imitate the processes. These are exercises of sharing and following collectively instructions that we get connected with the inner functions of the body, like circulation, electromagnetism and vibrations, by reading, listening and moving. During deep listening sessions in my course I became the medium [encoding/decoding]sharing information with my colleagues. You wear headphones and listen to a video and audio of Pauline’s instructions on deep listening, so you listen to the audio and copy what you see and repeat what you hear. You become the medium. When Clara did it it seemed as if it was coming from her head as we didn’t listen to the audio and she was continuously repeating. When you do this you don’t have time to interpret the text, and at the same time you are doing things with your body, you become detached from yourself and become another person.  I felt I became another person, I didn't have time to think of my position in the exercise; I understood the detachment as when you talk through a medium and listen back to your voice and thus it becomes another person, an alien voice which is distorted by the medium. My body and voice transmitted but also distorted the voice of Pauline Oliveros. This mediation happens at that moment. I am fascinated by the embodiment in that technology, to become a mechanical device. I had not listened to these instructions before so I was alert and unable to interpret fast. It is a difficult task to transmit and to receive and this is where I understood myself as a medium. As with the telephone the medium needs time. There is a slight delay. This is becoming faster, but there is an inbetween space which pushes your voice somewhere else. This is telepresence. To try these small experiments everyday I think I will find a place between our bodies and the technology of mediation.  I think to start grasp and control a reality that we are already in [human-in-the-loop] we should understand through our bodies and processes happening with our bodies. So what I mean for example I become the medium. So even the simple processes of reading and listening as we are receivers or transmitters. But also transcriptions, speech recognition and involve more people.

A metaphor of the loop: asking personal questions and then everyone else transcribing and spreading the message One is the transmitter another one the receiver and in between

What is my timetable: Until the end of January: 1. Trying these out in the public space including walking, disrupting the public rhythm and documenting observations, photos, videos, audio or text produced. 2. Do more experiments on reading, listening, repeating, walking with two or more people. Creating a metaphor with the body for the feedback structure of radio. The actions will be collective readings, deep listening exercises with a focus on the relation with the radio. Documenting observations and audio, video, photos, text produced In the beginning of February: 3. Merging the two sides of the experiments. How the one knowledge affects/informs the other. What new knowledge can be gained. 4. Involve more people in the process. Invite them to share their personal relation to these experiments [how they perceive the mediation of their voice and their parallel presence] and use this material in the process. Merge my process with facts related to the city and the people involved (where is that process important or not). People that have a difficulty on language and people that are afraid of surveillance and frequencies or they perceive them as an alien fact. People that learning this technical aspect of radio, but also do experiments like that, will be useful for their daily lives and struggles. People that I meet at my outside experiments. March: proceed with what all the previous experiments will bring.

why (transcription): This era of post-humanity is about the “expanding role of science, machines and digital media in social control and regulation” (The Economist, 2018). We think that we may have a safe distance from our mediated communication and we perceive ourselves mostly as users but we don’t really understand ourselves as part of it. Parts of our personal elements, like voiceprints, are fed as data to the system. I think the shift of this perception towards our embodied presence in the communication loop can open up possibilities for the relation we have with it. Our communication and our relation with these tools have been mostly formed by big corporations or the state, military, male, science. It seems to me that the communication platforms are estranged3 realities where the body [cultural, physical, political, gender] disappears4. They are technically complex and there is a mystery around them [like for speech recognition training data-machine learning, radio] My purpose is to redefine those mediums by appropriate them in a way that follows up the "situation"/position (cultural, political) of a person. To redefine them more conceptually and as part of movements. Actually language is a technology and has specific rules and has specific requ­irements. We use very specific parts of the brain and rules/codes[orality] that we communicate and it is a non human/distant technology that our body is involved and have adjusted in this. And we know to be involved in it because it is an old medium ad we have realized that with a lot of experience and communication. Where is the materiality of these technologies and where our bodies are in it. I think that by approaching the distortion we have with all these different technologies I feel that we should be able to strengthen these relationships we have with these technologies and not only as users [the most dominant idea]. It is just a tool but actually we are part of the tool and without us the circulation doesnt work so why not to have another way/ its not about using a technology, a space, a body. It is something more. I want to engage these technologies that are not abstract terms. We see them as alien spheres as other persons [like Alexa and Siri]

I want to do this project because we are gradually and rapidly donate our personal data in big organisations in the shake of the "public good" without thinking of it [ethics, politics on our bodies and social behaviour]. I also observe that all these new politics that enter our private and collective spheres estrange [2] us from our relations with the others and our surroundings/ dehumanize our lives. Especially I am interested in voice because our voice is a personal and unique element very related to our bodily conditions. For oral cultures the voice was a medium to spread knowledge, on a way that differs a lot from the writing cultures, "When auditory experiences are shared, histories too are shared, and not only from mouth to ear: they are perceived by and encoded in the body through the physicality of sound waves and passed on from one generation to another."[3] "should we be worried about the large-scale harvesting of our voiceprints?" "The companies behind this technology say that a voiceprint includes more than 100 unique physical and behavioural characteristics of each individual, such as length of the vocal tract, nasal passage, pitch, accent and so on. They claim it is as unique to an individual as a fingerprint, and that their systems even recognise people if they have a cold or sore throat."[4]. "Your voice is yours alone – as unique to you as your fingerprints, eyeballs and DNA."

Who can help me and how: -People I interview like Reni Hofmüller that can help me on experimenting with the specific technology and imagining other aspects of radio. -Raadio Caargo can help me imagining potential futures [feminist futurotopias as they call it] by engaging with different related methodologies and practices. As they say: "reclaim our relationships with techniques and technologies, to subvert these techniques, to blur genders and blow -Joana with prototyping [making embroidered antennas], references and discussion on embodied and distant voice -Amy and Clara with deep listening - Michael with the software of speech recognition [training, hacking,...]

Larger context: Human-in-the-loop or HITL is defined as a model that requires human interaction. It is used in machine learning. Human-in-the-loop allows the user to change the outcome of an event or process. HITL is extremely effective for the purposes of training because it allows the trainee to immerse themselves in the event or process. 6 The encoding and decoding model of communication “In contrast to other media theories that disempower audiences, Hall proposed that audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own social contexts, and might be capable of changing messages themselves through collective action.”2 The message can be “interpreted differently from person to person. ...decoding is the process of obtaining, absorbing, understanding, and sometimes using the information that was given throughout a verbal or non-verbal message.”

As Ong observed in Orality and Literacy, the condition for a democratic social dialogue in oral cultures was the presence of people in the space and their oral speech and thus after many discussions and performative behaviours they would reach to a decision together or they would just share their individual identities and stories. Especially I am interested in voice because our voice is a personal and unique element very related to our bodily conditions. For oral cultures the voice was a medium to spread knowledge, on a way that differs a lot from the writing cultures, "When auditory experiences are shared, histories too are shared, and not only from mouth to ear: they are perceived by and encoded in the body through the physicality of sound waves and passed on from one generation to another." "The companies behind this technology say that a voiceprint includes more than 100 unique physical and behavioural characteristics of each individual, such as length of the vocal tract, nasal passage, pitch, accent and so on.

There are several attempts [from feminists, artists, programmers, sociologists] of approaching hacking, technological cultures from a more feminist approach that involves the body, the vulnerabilities of the individual [text of hacking with care].

Notes: 1. Diagram of a general communication system from Claude E. Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, 1948. 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encoding/decoding_model_of_communication 3. estranged= 1. To make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; 2. To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations 4. https://underbelly.nu/product/the-phantom-of-the-operator/ 5. Voice samples for training speech analysis software (LDC). Tracing the samples 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-in-the-loop

Bibliography: The Economist (2018) ‘Are liberals and populists just searching for a new master?’, 8 October. Available at: https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/10/08/are-liberals-and-populists-just-searching-for-a-new-master (Accessed: 25 October 2018).