New Fordist Speech

Author: David Pocknee

New Fordist Speech Reconstruction takes an audio recording of a person speaking and re-constructs it using seven or more people.

The process works by splitting down the audio into small chunks of 250ms or less and sending these chunks to the headphones of the performers in sequence.

The performer then hears the short sound sample twice, with a short gap of silence in between.

The first time, they listen to the sample in order to learn it, and the second time they repeat it at the same time as it is played.

Due to the fact that the audio samples are extremely small and devoid of context, the player is forced to mimic the sound rather than its syntax or meaning. In other circumstances, when performers are asked to repeat a text from a recording, the rhythmic and melodic aspects of speech are subjugated and displaced by the primacy of meaning. Through this technique the manner, speed and nature of speech is recreated, rather than its meaning, which is already embedded in the sound itself.