Phatus

Interdisciplinary project that builds physical machines inspired in voice physiological systems.

Phatus is an extended interdisciplinary project to build physically instantiated, physiologically inspired voice machines. Aesthetically, the projects aims at an Artaudian theatre of machines, an assemblage of disquieting devices which laugh, cry, moan, rage and sigh.

In terms of intellectual and historical inquiry, the project is motivated by three related observations:

• The vast majority of human voice research and research into voice synthesis through the 20th Century has been almost exclusively preoccupied with speech.

• Prior to the 20th Century, voice research for the previous 200 years had focused on the making of machines which emulate physiology (Kratzenstein, von Kempelen, Darwin, Wheatstone, Faber,Paget, etc.).

• As with many science and engineering research agendas, since the late 19th Century, voice research has transitioned for a physical modeling practice to and analytically mathematical practice.