After Words

Background Our devices are listening. Previous generations of audio-technology recorded, transmitted, or manipulated sound. Today, smart speakers, voice assistants and related technologies ‘understand’ it as well. This creative project explores ‘machine listening’, not only as techno-science, but as a field of cultural production and contestation, with profound social, economic and political implications, that demand critical and artistic attention. Contribution ‘After Words’ is a multi-channel sound installation and 32-page publication, created by Joel Stern, Sean Dockray, and James Parker of the artistic research collaboration ‘Machine Listening’. The work was commissioned as part of ‘Data Relations’, an exhibition at Australian Centre of Contemporary Art. Adopting the form of a radio play, ‘After words’ explores themes of computational scripting, instruction, production, and performance through the prism of language and words. In doing so, the work gestures toward a near future in which language has been fully operationalised: where every word we speak has a computational effect and residue. Methodologically, the work incorporates curatorial research, artistic production, experimental pedagogy, sound studies, jurisprudence, and critical data studies, to contribute to the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of machine listening. The research contributes to public discourse around digital rights, data and extraction, platform capitalism and surveillance while arguing for the critical role of artists and cultural producers in shaping public perceptions of these issues. Significance After Words was commissioned by Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, a high-profile public institution in Melbourne, Australia, as part of Data Relations. The work was on display from 10 Dec 2022–19 Mar 2023 reaching an audience in the tens of thousands, and receiving substantial critical coverage and review.