New Noises New Voices is a transmedia research started back in 2016, exploring noise, voice, and Deafhood.
Between 2020 and 2023, the project has been supported by Stimuleringsfonds.
During the 2020-2021 research phase, NNNV developed as a field research, consisting of a series of sci-fi screenings with Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences, in order to rethink the representation of other hearing capacities in the media depiction of future scenarios.
The outcome of this research was a teaser that wove previous NNNV narratives and research insights together, developed in collaboration with a Hard of Hearing animator, Nigel van Roijen. You can watch the teaser below:
In 2022-2023 the project continued being developed with the financial support of Stimuleringsfonds and within the framework of the Kaboom+ VR WorldBuilding workshop.
In this phase of the project, the work was rethought in terms of an expanded sonic piece that uses VR as an engine for interactive composition. The title of this iteration is NNNV XR.
NNNV XR is inspired by my own biography and my dream practice. It summons a space at the crossroads between fictioning, oneiric manifestations, and hallucinative states. Recuperating the definition of cyberspace by William Gibson as a "consensual hallucination", the work allows the visitors to dream my own dreams, and to explore the virtual realm following different sensorial stimuli - visual, sonic, haptic - inside and outside VR.
The work has been designed to be accessible to people with different hearing capacities, using lights and vibrational cues rather than sonic prompts and spoken language.
For this work, I collaborated with Robin Krijgsman as a Neos VR technician and XR dramaturgy consultant, and with Leomar Imperator for the construction of the installation furniture. Tatevik Martirosyan is installation assistant and XR operator during the 2023 edition of Kaboom Festival.
The work will include further field research with Deaf communities in the form of dream workshops and VR accessibility feedback sessions.
It is being developed to be adapted to different showcase formats and environments.
NNNV XR has been developed alongside a theoretical research that has been presented in April 2023 during the Social Dissonance seminar organized by Cecile Malaspina, the College Internationale de Philosophie (Paris), and the Department of Philosophy University of West England (Bristol). This research has been published in June 2023 as an essay, Psofotopias, on Connessioni Remote, a journal on artivism, theater, and technology, published by the University of Milano, and . This research is also part of my forthcoming book, Psofotopias.
NNNV XR has been officially selected for the Kaboom 2023 VR Competition
You can watch the trailer for the first version of NNNV XR below:
NNNV was included in the program of De Week van Drift, and it was presented as an AV installation on 5 screens, with a surround sound installation at Doornrosje, Nijmegen, in June 2023.
In August 2023, four representatives of TYD, an organization for Sign Language and Deaf Culture education, joined us in my studio to test the work and give me feedback on accessibility. After collecting the feedback, a new phase of restructuring of the work started, leading to NNNV XR 2.0.
In the new version of the work, the XR is presented as three different VR experiences, three different dreams, each focusing on specific sensorial inputs and interactions.
While the first version of the work afforded a vibrational encounter with the sound pieces playing interactively with the experiencers, in the 2.0 iteration the vibrations are delivered through a custom made harness equipped with small shakers that vibrate on the back and the chest of the users.
NNNV XR 2.o has been shown and presented in November 2023 at the Researchers Office public event, in Amsterdam.
In April 2024, NNNV was presented in a new AV installation at Sencity Festival, Utrecht.
The installation comprised of four video channels, a surround sound installation, and four vibrating sculptures that could be touched by the audience.
