REPOSITORY : Make Language - Synthetic Accents| Make Language - Synthetic Accents ( 2006 - 2009 ) |
| Where are you from? Making non-places unbearable. |
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Digital signal processing can create arbitrary signals, most of which have no relationship to those human beings are capable
of uttering.
Despite the universality of the technical infrastructure, Text to Speech (TTS) systems are usually designed along national fault lines with localized voice fonts and linguistically identifiable entities; Sarahs for US English, Heathers for UK English and Günthers for German. It comes as no surprise that commercial TTS systems do not offer speech products with 'undesirable' features such as slurred speech or a strong German accent. In humans, accents are an audible map of a life lived. In machines, accented speech creates the illusion of a human with a story. These voices without origin seem particularly at home in what Marc Augé called Non-Lieux. The endless hallways of airports, and the empty rooms of convention centers become even more unbearable when they are augmented by synthetic accents. >> A synthetic Spanish-English accent announcing a flight at an airport. >> A synthetic German-English accent counting the planets of our solar system (and making a mistake). |
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