Work
Serveur Vocal Humain
Maker Julien Daillère · Work date 2020 · Medium telephone · Role work
Description
Daillère performs a synthetic voice himself, live, on his own mobile, navigating a branching script held as hyperlinks in a word-processing document. Advertised on social media as a genuine interactive voice response system built from recordings of his voice — a deliberate deception. He fakes error messages, truncates himself with the mute key, flattens pitch and tempo and loops "Merci de patienter…" in order to construct an illusion of non-life. His own sister navigated the whole tree without realising a human was performing. Later staged as a live radio version on Radio Galoche and as a remote audio tour of a gallery exhibition.
Source. https://inria.hal.science/hal-04153520
In French. Documented by the maker in Daillère, "Arborescences et voix de synthèse" (JIT 2022).
Anatomy
Thirteen criteria after Lauren R. Beck. Each carries a source grade: M maker-confirmed, P published, F first-hand, I inferred by the compiler, ? not yet established. Definitions are on the anatomy page.
- Participants listen through headphonesnoI
A call to the artist's mobile number.
- Participants move through space as part of the worknoI
The caller stays where they are.
- Audio technology is necessaryyesP
A voice on a phone line is the whole work.
- Site-, situation- or language-specificLanguageI
Performed in French, and the imitation depends on the prosody of French automated systems.
- Engages with the history of a sitenoI
No real place's history.
- Created for an urban environmentnoI
No urban dependence.
- Created as an artwork other than theaterunknown?
Presented at a theater-computing conference, and also as a sound work; the framing is genuinely mixed.
Did you experience this? Tell us - Intended to be understood as theateryesP
Presented at the Journées d'Informatique Théâtrale and discussed as spectacle vivant.
- Accidental real-world sights and sounds are importantnoI
The work supplies a complete audio world; the caller's room is not addressed.
- Spectator must participateyesP
The caller navigates the tree by speaking. Nothing proceeds otherwise.
- Has live performers other than the participantsyesM
The maker states plainly that he performs the synthetic voice live. That is the entire premise.
- Involves game playnoI
A branching tree, but no objective or resolution state.
- Uses props other than the listening devicenoI
Nothing is handled but the phone.
1 of thirteen are still unknown for this work. If you experienced it, you can settle them in a minute.