Our devices are listening to us. Previous generations of audio-technology transmitted, recorded or manipulated sound. Today our digital voice assistants, smart speakers and a growing range of related technologies are increasingly able to analyse and respond to it as well. Scientists and engineers increasingly refer to this as “machine listening”, though the first widespread use of the term was in computer music. Machine listening is much more than just a new scientific discipline or vein of technical innovation however. It is also an emergent field of knowledge-power, of data extraction and colonialism, of capital accumulation, automation and control. It demands critical and artistic attention.
MACHINE LISTENING is a new investigation and experiment in collective learning, curated by James Parker, Joel Stern and Sean Dockray for [Liquid Architecture](http://liquidarchitecture.org.au/ "Liquid Architecture") and launched at [**Unsound 2020: Intermission**](https://www.unsound.pl/en/intermission "Unsound")
MACHINE LISTENING is a new investigation and experiment in collective learning, curated by James Parker, Joel Stern and Sean Dockray for [Liquid Architecture](http://liquidarchitecture.org.au/ "Liquid Architecture") and launched at [Unsound 2020: Intermission](https://www.unsound.pl/en/intermission "Unsound")
Across three days at the start of October, we will come together to investigate the implications of the coming world of listening machines in both its dystopian and utopian dimensions. Comprising conversations, performance, provocations and writing from contributors around the
world, the online gatherings are divided into three sections, open to all:
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@ Amidst oppressive and extractive forms of state and corporate listening, practic
We encourage everyone to freely use it to learn and organise processes of learning and to freely adapt, rewrite and expand it to reflect their own experience and serve their own pedagogies.
Developed in partnership with Melbourne Law School and ANU School of Art & Design.
_________________________
Machine Listening is presented by Liquid Architecture and Unsound, and developed in partnership with Melbourne Law School and ANU School of Art & Design.
This event takes place online, and across multiple unceded Indigenous Lands.
