Digital Empathy

Digital Empathy
multimedia, 2019

“We live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s.” A sound visualization, revolves around the idea of communication through a non physical medium by personifying the data with sound waves.

Voice recordings from different people talking in different languages (Mandarin, Spanish, English, Turkish etc) were processed to create sound visualizations on Processing. These patterns were than projected on a wall with spatial sound installated. It welcomes the viewer in an empty space where you only encounter the circular movements and a person speaking. This piece questions empathy, de-personification and our lack of communication in the digital-communication era.

Digital empathy project is in the process of development; next phase is to pursue a sound analysis with emotion recognition and gather responsive visual data which brings upon another layer of dialogue: how does AI understands us?