Pr. Kleinberger gives a talk at Harvard Conflux

Symbiotic Co-Perception

As part of Harvard Conflux winter art residency, Pr. Kleinberger was invited to give a keynote address on the theme of Symbiotic Co-Perception. The talk highlighted Pr. Kleinberger’s work both on voice technology and animal technology

Voices are ubiquitous and familiar, so much so that it is easy to forget how fundamentally important vocal signals really are in fostering rapport and connectedness. Vocal experiences can take many forms (audible, tangible, silent, internal, external, neurological, remote, etc.) and offer great potential to turn otherness into togetherness. In this talk, Pr. Rébecca Kleinberger presents a series of immersive voice technologies and introduces a holistic framing of the voice, in its experiential nature, based on its power to connect. With every vocal interaction, we subconsciously reveal an abundance of personal information from identity and upbringing to hormone levels, physical and mental state. Could technology help leverage this meta-information to reduce biases and improve interpersonal interactions? Our relationship with our own voice is also far from obvious. Kleinberger’s research also encompasses new interactive systems based on changing how we hear the music of our own voice that have surprising consequences from reducing disfluencies, affecting mental state, and even altering our taste perception. The talk will also highlight some recent work form the INTERACT Animal Lab including parrot-to-parrot video calling and sonic enrichment in zoos.

Harvard Conflux is dedicated to exploring and expanding the intersection between new media, experimental arts, and creative technology. Founded on the belief that groundbreaking ways of making, knowing, and being will bloom from cultivating greater interaction between the arts & engineering sciences, our collective merges artistic philosophies with cutting-edge technical development for symbiotic advancement of theory & practice across, between, and within different disciplines.