Title｜ Whispered Silhouettes (2024)
Form｜ Interactive Sound Installation
Artist｜ GUI Ren
Whispered Silhouette is an interactive sound installation that investigates the entangled relationships between sound, gender, and spatial perception. The work features a discarded moving box fitted with two metal horns—one for speaking and one for listening. Visitors are invited to sit, speak, and listen, engaging the body and ear in a layered sonic experience.
As the speaker’s voice passes through the system, it undergoes real-time transformation via Max/MSP using distortion, amplitude modulation, ring modulation, and delay. These effects shift every minute. The listener hears two versions of the voice: a faint trace of the original and a dominant processed signal. This asymmetrical sound interaction highlights the instability of listening and the constructed nature of sonic identity. Ambient sounds and bodily gestures within the space are also integrated into the morphing process, amplifying the installation’s sensory complexity.
Rooted in feminist theories of voice and subjectivity, the piece deconstructs speech clarity to foreground sensation over semantics. As part of GUI Ren’s Female Soundscape Project, the work invites reflection on how women—as both vocal and listening bodies—reshape acoustic environments through their presence, memory, and movement.
《Whispered Silhouette》是一件互動式聲音裝置作品，探討聲音、性別與空間感知之間錯綜複雜的關係。作品使用一個廢棄搬家紙箱，裝有兩個金屬喇叭——一側供觀眾發聲，另一側供聆聽。觀眾可坐下與其互動，透過身體與耳朵進入一場多層次的聲音經驗。
當聲音通過系統時，會經由 Max/MSP 程式即時處理，應用失真、振幅調變、環形調變與延遲等效果，每分鐘隨機切換。聆聽者將同時接收到兩層聲音：原始聲音的微弱痕跡與主導的變形聲音。這種單向聲音交流揭示了聆聽的不穩定性與聲音身份的建構性。裝置也將展場內的環境聲與觀眾的身體動作納入處理流程，進一步加強其感官層次。
本作受到女性主義對聲音與主體性的理論啟發，透過「去語意化」的聲音處理，讓觀眾專注於感知本身而非語言意義。作為 GUI Ren「女性聲音景觀計劃」的一部分，作品引導觀眾思考女性如何透過聲音與身體，重塑城市空間中的聲音經驗與存在感。
