How does a robot speak? Between medium, visuality and space – Stepan Laštuvka

Graphic design for re-publication of De robot van de rommelmarkt in 2000.

December 2023

Bram Ellens’ current project in progress introduced questions about voice and sound as the key topic of this ELRAT sprint. Specifically, Ellens works on a project involving the translation of a book, De robot van de romelmarkt, into a theatre play under the name Recycled Robot (Dragt 1967; see fig. 1). Moreover, since the theatre play includes robots as actors who are required to communicate by speech, it brings about a variety of technical and conceptual questions. To this end, Ellens collaborates with the voice actor and sound designer Harmen, who joined this sprint as a guest. In response, Harmen introduced his work as well as the work in progress developed with Ellens on specific problems that they are currently engaging with. Via the project of Recycled Robot, and the work of Harmen, this sprint explored the significance of voice and sound as a medium in the context of performing arts and other creative practices. As a result, voice had been discussed in relation to various imaginaries of robots as entities, as a medium conveying a sense of gender and its significance in relation to visual features and the surrounding space.

Throughout the course of the sprint, it came to the fore how voice may acquire a distinct significance in relation to the visual character of an entity who speaks, the surrounding space or other media involved. Specifically, it had been discussed how the quality, such as the tone of voice, inevitably part-takes in shaping the character that an actor aims to convey. In turn, it was pointed out how the quality of voice then carries a critical potential of making possibly familiar characters strange, thereby opening space for self-reflection and imagination on behalf of the audience. In this respect, Ellens and Harmen introduced the voices of R2-D2 from Star Wars and Wall-E as examples of well-known robotic characters expressed through characteristic voices and sounds. These cases highlighted how alterations of the voice of R2-D2 or Wall-E could, on the one hand, distort their character but also offer a scope to further develop the meaning and feelings their characters may convey. So too, in the process of translating already developed characters in the literary form of De robot van der romelmarkt, the quality of voice had been discussed as an integral part of character development, which impacts the overall meaning that the play may convey.

More specifically, the two examples of Star Wars and Wall-E brought to light the significance of an art form and the variety of matters concerning translation from one to another. In this example, film conveys a pre-recorded voice from a studio and the work of sound designers, whereas, in the theatre, sound relies largely on the composition of space. As a result, the specificity of theatre brings about artistic concerns such as whether it will be improvised or pre-recorded, how the actors are situated in space, or in case of robots, how their sound relates to any pre-designed movements. Each of these concerns requires a specific choice that then impacts the significance of the project in general, which in this case of translation, cannot be divorced from subjective readings of the original book. Particularly, the discussion highlighted varied readings of the meaning behind a specific identity of gender that the key characters convey. In this regard, a quality voice was imagined as a medium that could alter an expression of gender of an already developed character and, by extension, potentially offer a path for reflection on various questions concerning gender in the surrounding context. Thinking about voice in relation to gender was pointed out as an important as well as sensitive aspect concerning the meaning of the play and its potential socio-political resonance.

As a result, the sprint offered space for reflection on a variety of intricacies concerning the significance of voice in relation to robotics as expressive entities in the context of the theatre. On the one hand, it had been emphasized how voice cannot be thought of as divorced from the specificity of a medium, such as film or the spatial composition of theatre. Moreover, it was discussed how in the process of translation from one form to another, voice becomes a medium offering scope for creative and critical engagement with facets of characters developed in the original source. Thus, voice may be meaningful in dialogue with specific visual features such as the qualities that associate particular ideas concerning an identity of gender. As a result, voice had been emphasized as a key element contributing to the artistic process of character development by intersecting with various facets of a personality and thereby playing a part in light of any larger narrative context. By extension, this sprint served to spotlight a variety of matters concerning voice in artistic projects such as the one of Ellens, which, in turn, enabled to consider broader questions concerning voice and sound in relation to the specificity of a medium, space, movement and others.

Reference

Dragt, Tonke. [1976] 2001. De robot van de rommelmarkt. Utrecht: B for Books.