In this audio paper, I advance the concept of trans sound studies, a field that both theorizes and enacts how sonic practices can unsettle the presumed stability of voice, body, and gender. Drawing on trans studies, sound studies, and media archaeology, I situate the voice not as a transparent index of identity but as a mutable and more-than-human medium of experimentation. Through citations of historical speech synthesis, such as the Voder, CHANT and the DECtalk, as well as contemporary artistic practices by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Luca Soudant, the work demonstrates how technologies of vocal modulation open onto new sonic possibilities for gender beyond naturalization or legibility. Central to the paper is my own voice, spectrally manipulated in real time, foregrounding the critical potential of vocal unnaturalness as a practice of destabilization. In dialogue with theories of the »acousmatic question« (Eidsheim), trans operations (cárdenas), and trans*formative sonic thinking (Soudant), I propose trans sound studies as both an analytic and a creative method. It argues for embracing the alien and inhuman capacities of synthesized and modulated voices, not as failures of authenticity, but as generative openings for rethinking identity through sound.

Audio paper by Paulus van Horne.

Part of Se



Embracing unnaturalness: Computer voices & trans sound studies

Seismograf is an independent Danish web magazine focusing on the newest developments within the arts of sound.