I first started working with synthesized voices in 1996 when I met GH Hovagimyan during a Villa Medicis “Hors les murs” residency in the United States (New York and San Francisco). GH was trying to get the voices, recently incorporated into the mac/apple operating system, to sing or to rap at least. I had bought myself my first digital audio recorder (DAT) and I was busy creating sound environments from field recordings. We produced an album entitled “Talker Talker” that incorporated Gh's voice synthesis poems into my electroacoustic compositions.

Excited by the possibilities offered by these synthetic characters, we decided to do a “Roadshow” for which we bought 4 MacBooks that we mounted on radio-controlled cars equipped with built-in sound systems. There followed a series of experimental operettas (where the computers played on stage) and gigs (where we sang with them) that we called alternately “a Soapopera for Laptops” and “Exercises in Talking”.

Soa(pop)era for laptops (1998)

The piece consists of four laptops on radio controlled cars. The laptops are mounted on custom made loudspeaker-trailers. The piece uses voice recognition and text-to-speech as well as MAX/MSP programming. The four vehicles are essentially performers. The work involves the four characters talking to each other or singing. Sinclair and Hovagimyan also perform with the characters, by playing guitar or talking to the characters. Pitch tracking software allows the laptops to listen to a string of notes and sing along. The characters respond to each other via keywords that trigger responses thus affecting natural conversation. The characters cars are controlled by perfomers. The performances were concieved of as unique and evolutive. The artists created new content and programming structures for each performance. As a consequence there are several difference titles for this performance work denoting the different developments. The alternate titles are: Exercises in Talking and Les Jaseurs.