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Daisy Bell

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https://doi.org/10.5070/R72145850Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
Abstract

In this digital mash-up recording, the artist has recreated the early 20 th century song Daisy Bell.The song sits squarely within a history of the digital interfacing with speech synthesis/AI formatsto produce new sound experiences; notably, here it references, and starts off from, how thesong is used in the movie Space Odyssey 2001 as part of the computer HAL’s database.Through the compilation of various versions and recording instruments the musical piece/artwork here showcases how, symbolically, the translation and transmutation of voice and musicacross modes can produce the uncanny and force us to question what is essential, what ispersistent, and what changes through different formats. It combines the voices of earlier singersand earlier modes of recording with new technologies for sound making as well as “voices thatwere never alive to begin with.” It explores the ontology of simulation and addresses how thedigital engages questions of nostalgia and the uncanny.

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