Voice Yard: Towards unmuted voices
Written in collaboration with: Diana Pankova, Riad Salameh, Olha Pylypenko and Maryam Mumladze
Abstract:
Taking as a premise that the discourse of online communication, based mostly on texting and visual representations, leaves out an important layer of human self-expression – voice and sound – an investigation into the concept of “muted voice” and its position in cyberspace is proposed. A practice-based work was conducted, drawing attention to vocal expression as part of life experience, investigating its deliberately ignored position in cyberspace, and proposing a way out of this situation. As a practical experiment, the interactive website Voice Yard was created – with the intention to “unmute” voices through participatory experience. The theoretical part aims to analyze the case study created by implementing the practical part, and to put the results into a wider conceptual context. Constructivist methodology is used to frame the research strategy, as the best way of approaching the topic based on human experience and social interaction.
Keywords: voice, muted voice, cyberspace, online communication, interactivity, constructivist methodology.
