Mouthpiece

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Diemut Strebe, “The Prayer,” 2020

aluminum frame, silicone, motors, plaster, monitor, printer and computerized system using neuronal machine learning software, AI free text-generation for speech and singing, AI text to speech - generation in real time, and audio / mouth movement synchronization, 14” x 5.5” x 10” (courtesy the artist, photo courtesy New Media Gallery, New Westminster, B.C.)

Mouthpiece, on view until Dec. 11 at the New Media Gallery in New Westminster, B.C., presents three internationally acclaimed artists whose works engage with artificial intelligence, the voice and what it means to be human. A brief wall text, displayed on a screen by the gallery entrance, opens with an evocative quote from the late Paul Zumthor, a Montreal-based scholar of orality: “… people’s voices are more revelatory than their eyes or the looks on their faces … the vocalised sound goes from inside to inside, links two existences without further mediation.”

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Diemut Strebe, “The Prayer,” 2020

aluminum frame, silicone, motors , plaster, monitor, printer and computerized system using neuronal machine learning software, AI free text-generation for speech and singing, AI text to speech - generation in real time, and audio / mouth movement synchronization, 14” x 5.5” x 10” (courtesy the artist, photo by Corrina Tang Photography)

The intimacy of voice and sound throughout the show is arresting. Of particular note is German-born Diemut Strebe’s The Prayer, an AI installation of a voice box in the form of a mouth and nose constructed from silicone and electronics that recites and sings excerpts from world religious texts drawn from an algorithm. Built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in response to her research question, “How would a divine epiphany appear to an artificial intelligence?” it expresses prayers in the Kendra voice from Amazon Polly, a service that turns text into lifelike speech. 

In a pitch-black room, I watched Strebe’s sculpture sing on its plinth, while its circuitry and rubber squeaked and clicked in tandem with the prayer. A screen beside the plinth offers input and output maps so processes leading to functions like “sing” and “pray” are clearly outlined. One might think the maps and wires would detract from the effect, but it is strangely moving and evokes questions related to free will and higher powers. No one spoke when I visited The Prayer. Everyone seemed devoted to listening, heads bowed towards the voice box.

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Tony Oursler, “Untitled,” 2019

blown glass, polished steel, multimedia microprocessor with sound and LCD screens, installation view (courtesy of Lehmann Maupin, NYC, and Tony Oursler; photo courtesy New Media Gallery, New Westminster, B.C.)

Renowned American video artist Tony Oursler’s glass bots immediately evoke the fragility of the human form. With their spherical glass heads fitted with mini-LED screens in the place of facial features, each audio/video feed blinks affectively and whispers lines like “the clouds will break tonight.” Oursler says it is all his voice “but I try to channel other people to keep the variety and veracity.” In places where limbs would be, one bot features lit purple tubes, while another has appendages that resemble batons. The room is lit in purple and red hues from the bots and the overhead fixtures so that light itself becomes a medium. It is magical to be among these poetic souls. I sat down next to one in a fallen position on the floor because it blinked at me and said, “I have a feeling.” Even bots (like myself) can catch feelings.

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Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka Nissinen, “Bad Mantra,” 2018

electronic media installation with puppets, robotics, media player, musical instruments and paraphernalia, 24’ x 20’ x 13’8” (courtesy of Matts Gallery, London; photo by Corrina Tang Photography)

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Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka Nissinen, “Bad Mantra,” 2018

detail of electronic media installation with puppets, robotics, media player, musical instruments and paraphernalia, 24’ x 20’ x 13’8” (courtesy of Matts Gallery, London; photo by Shazia Hafiz Ramji)

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The final work, Bad Mantra, is a collaboration between Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors. Based on a character from The Aalto Natives, an animation that satirizes Finnish identity and politics, it was developed for the Finnish Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. 

Bad Mantra prizes happy accidents. It’s installed in a sectioned room that resembles a recording studio, with a main space (where the mixing booth would be) that features wiggly pink kinetic arms reaching down from the ceiling to play instruments such as a Korg Monologue synthesizer and a Gibson Epiphone guitar mounted on the wall. All the wiring is visible in organized chaos. The accidental bumping and plucking by the pink hands is hilarious. The arms lead to another section of the room behind a glass panel, where a chimeric mass of pink muppet faces vocalize vaguely musical tones in humorous dissonance with the instruments. 

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Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka Nissinen, “Bad Mantra,” 2018

detail of electronic media installation with puppets, robotics, media player, musical instruments and paraphernalia, 24’ x 20” x 13’8” (courtesy of Matts Gallery, London; photo courtesy New Media Gallery, New Westminster, B.C.)

Why are voices instantly recognizable? What is the incomparable feeling of familiarity in the voice of a stranger over the phone? Why do we feel sound in our skin? What does it mean to exist as a “being of light"? Is consciousness light? Where can I get the input and output maps for my feelings? These are just some questions that Mouthpiece provokes. The works at the New Media Gallery may seem dystopian at first, expectedly recalling films like Blade Runner and Brazil, but art (if you’re only somewhat of a bot) does something. These works return us to ourselves by reminding us of the strangeness and mystery at our core. ■

Mouthpiece at the New Media Gallery in New Westminster, B.C., from Oct. 1 to Dec. 11, 2022.

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