Just last week I mentioned the story of an American Airlines flight emitting “bizarre” noise on its intercom. Now shoppers in British town of Middlesbrough “thought they were hearing things when speakers linked to the CCTV system started to make seemingly nonsensical broadcasts.” The audio included morning greetings and an unidentified voice of authority saying, “We intend to unite and level up across the whole of our United Kingdom.”
As it turned out, this wasn’t an unidentifiable phenomena, but an installation by Olivia Louvel, a French-born artist pursuing a PhD (“investigating the interplay of voice and sculpture”) at the University of Brighton: “On dedicated sites in the centre of town passers-by will hear political slogans, news headlines — read by the AI voice ‘Kate’ — and the sounds of protest, reflecting the current state of political affairs in Britain.” More from Louvel at olivialouvel.com.