Today I asked the question: Can Microsoft Sam be played as an instrument?
This is what happened.
I began in the place of childhood. Microsoft Sam was one of the text-to-speech voices on Windows 2000 and XP. I remember fondly typing in silly words and phrases just to make a robot say it. And giggling with absolute glee everytime (much to the annoyance of my parents). On re-discovering this nostalgic speech-synthesiser I went down the same route. The first thing I did was to type in 'CUNT' several times, laughing as I went.
I noticed that an interesting rhythmic noise was starting to appear so decided to go further. The experimentation was filmed by my partner Nick Womersley as it unfolded. Things got rather pleasingly chaotic, with 5 different Microsoft Sams chorusing in rhythmic nonsense computer gibberish.
At the ending, I real-time edited the random sentences generated by the Microsoft Sam simulator on Lingojam, one word at a time, taking inspiration from Abi Palmer's 'Spore: An asexually reproducing haiku'. I thought of technology as another kind of mycelium. And my love of bass. Finally, I fell into the absurd statement:
'Bass basses us bassy basses Bass can bass the bass bassy of bass'.
The whole exercise made me think of some of the processes active in algorave, changing the text real-time like one might change the code in things like Sonic Pi. And of what it would be like if computers spoke in tongues.
This gratuitous silliness with technology is the kind of thing that keeps me sane. I edited together the whole video on my phone using VivaVideo. I have such gratitude for the power constantly at our fingertips in this day and age. Thankyou technology. I love you. -----
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