My project proposal was about the intervention of data practices from Google, Facebook, Amazon... into our communication systems and all the human labor happening behind it. I made an annotated diagram that explains that from my perspective. So for example,....(explain one route with listening and transcribing)
I wanted to highlight the human involvement into the training of speech recognition software on which personal assistants are based on. And the importance of voice as a unique element of our bodies that is collected into a big pool of trained data. My aim was to make experiments with other people in group sessions where we would discuss about our privacy and at the same time the discussion would become input for a process of activities. Like transcribing, listening, eavesdropping, speaking, recording, repeating. They would immitate the processes of the training of speech recognition tools. Here is a diagram made by somebody else that explains further the exploitation of user's speech data and the free labor for the Amazon echo.
Besides their commercial use these tools are also used by the states to control citizens or the access of refugees in the country. For example Germany wants to use speech analysis tools to verify the claims of origin of refugees. So they collect their voice data through interviews and if the tool finds out that their dialect is not related to their claims of origin then they are banned by asking asylum.
My purpose was to strengthen our awareness for our involvement in the loop and answer in some questions that bother me. Some of these questions is how our bodies are influenced by these systems, what is the control over them, what are the new relation with our voices and how can we appropriate these new technologies more consciously, what new material and tools these experiments produce? It seems to me that the communication platforms are estranged[3] realities where the personal body [cultural, physical, political, gender] disappears realities difficult to understand. I would try first an example at Leeszaal where the visitors and the volunteers are permanent inhabitants of Netherlands and are coming from different countries. I assume that they have different relations to these tools. For example, some people donate their voice to speech recognition tools, others use personal assistants ...
I organised a workshop, part of the pyratechnic sessions, with the first years. I wanted to immitate a loop in which a conversation of two people leakes out to another room, through Jitsi, where participants repeat, transcribe and then read the transcription back to them. So their words come back distorted. //Explain the second diagram//
The workshop was missing content and after the feedback I got from the participants and the outcome of it I started looking for transcriptions and distribution of public speeches and that led me on my interest on the voice and the body in public.
So I started to focus my research on voice in public, public speeches and assemblies with the aid of media. I am very interested in the voice and its ability to connect people but also to express the uniqueness of the speaker. I looked at specific examples of counter communication that I had come accross in a previous research. I like to explore different ways of writing, make my texts alive through the tools and try oter ways of publishing.
In feminists movements speech-making workshops were helping women to express the violence in their home (private space) to the public domain that was dominated by male voices. They were privatizing listening and horizontal communication. The presence of them in public was very important. I must say that Greece isn't very far away from that gender/social division between private and public spaces. And this is what I want to practice and think on.
In occupy movements respectively speech and voice played an important role. It was not allowed to use amplifying devices in the public space so the crowd became the "human microphone", repeating what the speaker says. Youtube and live streaming was used for the fast communication of the public assemblies in internet and were perfectly fitted in the urgency of those actions. I see streaming as a bottom-up approach for establishing rapid (though temporary) communication.
Similarly radio activists were broadcasting community radio shows or spreading political speeches legally or illegally.
I want to organise public speech workshops and live-streaming sessions that connect the public space with the private, the digital/net with the physical and explores the possiblities of public assemblies in both spaces. The engagement of the speakers and the crowd with the (low)technology can give more potentials on public assemblies and speeches. It is also a way to diminish the division between amateur and expert, different genders, politicians and citizens, priviliged and non-privileged. What technologies are these (open sourcem inclufing body) that publish public speeches? It can take the form of an interface (pad and live streaming) while doing my actions with others.
This restriction of use of technology to the public for amplification of speech is not the only one that prevents people from creating public assemblies. It’s somehow controversial when the citizens have to ask for the use of technology in public spaces but the states install surveillance devices in the streets and squares and gather data of them without their concent. I found several restrictions regarding public assemblies. In Rotterdam, in a specific area where a market of immigrants is being held, there is a ban on public assembly: “In problem areas, the Local Ordinance (Algemene Plaatselijke Verordening) allows municipalities to proclaim a ban on public assembly. Originating from the 2000 European Football Championships held in Rotterdam, it continues to be in effect on the Afrikaandermarkt. Although previously legitimated by anti-hooliganism, it is now enforced due to anti-terrorist concerns” (Free House, no date). Besides local bans on the name of ‘public good’, in some cases surveillance with several technologies and devices is applied. The installation of these devices in the public space conflicts with the constitution. Examples of such technologies and practices that surveil public assemblies are the operation of CCTV cameras and the collection of personal data through videotaping and photographing. In the case of UK the state use “visible, overt police surveillance tactics in the context of political assemblies” (Aston, 2017, p. 1) on a way that tresspass the privacy rights of the protesters. Similarly in Greece, the “electronic surveillance of public assemblies has been a controversial topic in the Greek public arena, particularly during the parliamentary discussion of Law 3625/2007. This Law exempted all police activities involving data processing during public assemblies from their obligation to protect the fundamental principles deriving from the rights to privacy and data protection”
Coming from a country were the public presence and resistance is on stake, gender inequalities are reflected in the public and the engagememt with the technology is divided in the male expert and the other amateur, I felt the need to embrace this side of technology and awaken it and the demand for presence through my own eyes. Coming to a country were the public presence is highly controlled and surveilled. Use of technology for controling the crowd that is not expressed in public but online. The bodily representation and face to face communication not on priority in matters of democracy and agonistic arena. Reflecting the issues arisen on the rights on speech and open use of public spaces. Interrogating the contribution of daily technologies like livestraming and their exploitation by social media companies. Surveillance with personal assistants, listening to the crowd
Practices that include the body and the own voice of one person together with streaming tools {pad-Transcription, live-streaming--speech and assemblies}
Prioritize the listening
Ways of publishing speeches
Make workshops on directing private and public (physical and digital) live streaming
Try experiments on spaces here/ search for restrictions and grey zones and interrogate data practices/surveillance on the crowd
A workshop discussion on public speech and assemblies in Netherlands:
- I will bring texts related to that, we will figure out laws in their country and this country, what is the situation with women? Able to speak in public? what are the public spaces for immigrants and refugees? What streaming tools are used for emergent publishing
- Prototyping with devices- live streaming, speech recognition software (voice interface and assistant) and radio- archive our speeches-what is their experience with these tools? Border control?
- Public moment in Leeszaal. Exploring its online spreading through automated transcription
Using pad iframe in a website, human microphone, radio? collective editing, transcription, collective live streaming
medium: live streaming, transcibing, human microphone, internet
tools: live streaming, pad, open source tools
license:
Create public:
how: workshops with inhabitants (daily expression in rotterdam public) and experiments in public spaces, connect with people and communities around patebin, live streaming
why: occupy public space and the contribution of media, externilize the private the need for presence for democratic processes to happen, the conflict with the powerful.
Liveness that the medium provides and engagement with the technology
Parts of my previous proposal may come back in the future if they fit my development. My approach may look chaotic but everyting comes together and make sense at the end. I collect and search through the broader context of the topic but then I simplify a lot the whole process. I try small experiments, then I come back to research and then experiments again.
