Wet Signal Voice Gardens is an online landscape, made by Kari Robertson.

Audiences are invited to press the big, red button and speak into the microphone. Their sounds are recorded, and the recording is transformed into a colourful shape with the form and characteristics determined by the pitch, length, and volume of the voice.

Typical vocal avatars, such as Siri, don’t have common speech defects such as stutters or slips of the tongue; they almost always resemble impossibly able-bodied members of society, with highly limited representations of age, race, physicality or neurodiversity.

Wet Signal Voice Gardens invites participation, to explore how hierarchies of value in the offline world might persist, or could be subverted, online. Wet Signal Voice Gardens plays with the prejudices of the offline world and fosters an inclusive space.

Wet Signal Voice Gardens was developed and realised by Luke Murphy and Cristina Cochoir. It was originally commissioned by UP Projects London and was generously supported by Stimuleringfonds. The piece was originally shown on UP Projects 'This is Public Space' and has been adapted for exhibition at VISUAL.

About the Artist:

Kari Robertson works with time-based media, primarily sound, analogue film and digital video. She takes a sci-fi approach to subjectivity, using narrative as a tool to re/un-think the sovereignty of our bodies, identities or minds, and as a means to access forms of radical empathy.

Play Wet Signal Voice Gardens Online