Mukul Patel

This project emerges from Mukul Patel's earlier work on "Soundings," a metadata-rich audio archive for IWM’s Sounds of Democracy project that he developed in 2021. Initially, Patel will explore the potential of the archive as an investigative tool, using it to analyze examples of synthetic speech, such as the speech of digital assistants. What is revealed about political assumptions and values inherent in the software? A second phase of the project will be of much broader scope, and lay the groundwork for a book. Ubiquitous networked computing promises a frictionless, utilitarian future through algorithmic optimization and management, while challenging values such as autonomy and privacy. A public that is better informed about the methods and mechanisms of this new information space is certainly better equipped to act with consequence and responsibility. But much more is possible – the mathematics and sciences that underpin and inform mediating technologies are rich sources of structures, approaches, and processes that can serve as radical models of thinking and metaphors for living. (For example, exotic metrics and topologies can illuminate everyday notions of neighborhood and borders.)