The Voice Symposium
Friday 16 November 2012
The Science Museum’s Dana Centre
165 Queen’s Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 5HD

A one-day symposium and evening performance bringing together scientists, artists, researchers, musicians and poets around the common topic of the voice.

Free Entry: booking essential via thevoicesymposium.eventbrite.co.uk

Programme:

09.45-10.15: Arrival, sign-in and coffee

10.15-10.30: Welcome and opening remarks

10.30-11.00: Opening address – Prof. Sophie Scott (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL)

11.00-12.30: Panel Discussion, ‘The Social Voice’:

Lawrence Abu Hamdan – ‘Aural Contract’
Jonnie Robinson (British Library) – ‘Sounds Familiar? English accents and dialects in their social context’
Carolyn McGettigan (Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London) – ‘Vocal identity in speech production and perception’
Hannah Silva – ‘Power, Rhetoric and Claptrap’
Chaired by Alice Carey

12.30-14.00: Lunch (own arrangements)

14.00-15.30: Panel Discussion, ‘Voices Beyond the Human’:

Aura Satz – ‘Sound Seam’, screening and talk
Prof. Roger K. Moore (Speech and Hearing Research Group, University of Sheffield) – ‘Speaking and Listening Machines: Siri and beyond’
Joe Banks (Goldsmiths College / University of Westminster) – ‘Rorschach Audio – Art & Illusion for Sound’
David Reby (University of Sussex) – ‘Deer voices: understanding the origins of vocal biodiversity’
Chaired by James Wilkes

15.30-16.00: Coffee/tea

16.00-17.30: Panel Discussion: ‘Mixed Signals: Communication Beyond Speech’

Holly Pester (Birkbeck College, University of London) and Emma Bennett (Queen Mary’s, University of London) – ‘Holly Pester and Emma Bennett in conversation’
Pradheep Shanmugalingam (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL) – ‘From hearing bleeps, to hearing them again as words – sinewave speech perception as a tool for investigating how the brain processes language’
Mikhail Karikis (University of Brighton) – ‘Sumbisori: voicing the mysteries of the oceanic depths’
Chaired by Matthew Wraith

17.30-18.30: Break (refreshments provided)

18.30-20.30: Evening programme

Aura Satz – performance
Emma Bennett – poetry
Lawrence Abu Hamdan – ‘The Whole Truth’, audio documentary
James Wilkes – poetry and performance from the Vox Lab residency
Antonia Barnett-McIntosh, Adam Crockatt and Emma Bennett – ‘In Air’
Mikhail Karikis – ‘Sounds from Beneath’
Holly Pester – poetry
Carol Watts and Will Montgomery – poetry and sound collaboration

The symposium is supported by:

The Science Museum’s Dana Centre
Wellcome Trust
Resonance 104.4fm
The London Consortium