2024-06-13 –, Ethical Dilema Cafe
This workshop welcomes vocal artists, researchers, data scientists, policy makers - or just anyone with an interest in human voice(s) - to join us in reflecting on the value of the human voice within the current state of voice technologies.
What do our voice(s) do? How do they travel and connect us? And where do they go?
Most importantly, how can understanding our values around speaking, singing, shouting, being heard or being silent help us to understand what is at stake when voice(s) become "data" in networks, algorithms and the hands (and ears) of engineers, researchers and data workers?
Are you a vocal artist wondering how your own voice data might be used in training AI voices or music production tools? Or someone doing research involving voice data who wishes there was more ethically sourced data and guidelines within your field? Or a policy maker trying to better understand the landscape of stakeholders around vocal data?
In this workshop we will work on creating a set of vocal values, starting from each person's individual relationship to voice(s), and try to map out how voices travel through different contexts, bodies, and communities, datasets and digital networks.
Together we will reflect on what kinds of pathways for voice exist across AI voice technology and voice data collection, and reflect on what we really want. We will collect and map out all of these wishes, reflections and pathways as a first step towards building a concept of Vocal Values for technology.
Wiebke is a research scientist working on ethical and trustworthy AI at Sony AI. She holds a PhD (cum laude) from the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Wiebke completed her Masters in Computer Science at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and worked as a data scientist and engineer in the energy sector. In 2022 Wiebke received a Mozilla Technology Fund Award to support her work on fairness in voice technologies. She is a fellow of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Young Researchers, the Data Science for Social Good Initiative and the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute.
Jonathan Chaim Reus is an internationally touring transmedia artist, musician and researcher working to bridge art, science and technology through music practices. His own artistic work explores the ways technologies of music-making transform and are transformed by cultural traditions and material values. Since 2018 he has focused on human voice, and how the transformations of voice in data-driven technologies also brings a reconsideration of bodies, identities and communities.
In 2022, he received a CTM Radiolab commission for the collective generative radio epic "In Search of Good Ancestors". And since 2024 he is creative lead on the S+T+ARTS EU funded research projects "DADAsets", exploring vocal values and how they can be realized through artistic data collection practices.
As a composer, musician and artist Jonathan has received commissions from the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Slagwerk Den Haag, and Asko-Schönberg Ensemble, including composing original music and creating a robotic tape machine orchestra for Brave New World 2.0, a nationally-touring ensemble production re-imagining Aldous Huxley's dystopia in an era of intelligent machines. Together with Sissel Marie Tonn he is one part of the artist duo Sensory Cartographies, whose work investigates ways intimate, sensorial technologies can bring us into closer connection to the earth and our fragile ecosystems.
Jonathan is a PhD candidate in Music at the University of Sussex. He is an affiliate of the Intelligent Instruments Lab in Reykjavik, and a co-founder of the Instrument Inventors Initiative in The Hague.
Sissel Marie Tonn is a Danish artist based in The Hague. In her practice she explores the complex
ways humans perceive, act upon and are entangled with their environments. Her work centers
around moments of awareness and shifts in perception, where the boundaries between our bodies
and the surrounding environment begin to blur. Tracing and capturing these moments often result in
hybrid, interactive installations and objects, where audience is invited to engage in a sensory and
participatory way with the stories and data at hand. She imagine her work as “training grounds”
meant to challenge our pre-configured modes of perception, attention, and sense of self, and shed
light on how our biology as well as our cultural conditions influence the ways in which we perceive
and subsequently act upon our surroundings.
Chaeyoung(Chae) Kim is a cultural worker based in the Netherlands with an interest in bringing people together. Trained as a painter, her artistic practice is materialised by the use of illustration, physical props, self-publishing, and hosting. More recently, she has been researching the subjects of humour, intimacy, and community building. Her research is supported by a series of publishing acts, which she conceptualizes as 'intimate publishing'.
Josephine Zwaan is a multifaceted, creative thinker who is driving inclusivity and decolonisation in music. In addition to her work as an artist and music producer, she co-founded the platform rosetta. This initiative supports female and nonbinary music producers, with an emphasis on education and community building.
Through her various pursuits, Josephine uses research as a tool to challenge and rethink existing frameworks and practices. She is currently developing a decolonial framework for electronic music production based on African musical and philosophical principles.