VOX ET MACHINA:  Una genealogía incompleta de los usos y estéticas de la voz artificial.

Jordi Roquer González

doi:10.5216/mh.v26.83936

Authors

Jordi Roquer González Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, España jordi.roquer@uab.cat https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6245-8143 (unauthenticated)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5216/mh.v26.83936

Keywords:

voz, potshumanismo, artificial, vocoder, talkbox, música popular, auto-tune

Abstract

This article proposes an incomplete genealogy of the uses and aesthetics of the artificial voice in popular music, from the first scientific experiments of the eighteenth century to the most recent practices linked to artificial intelligence. The study begins with pioneering devices such as the Voder and Vocoder, continues through the creative experiments of the 1960s with the Talkbox and studio manipulations, and examines the consolidation of the processed voice in mass culture during the 1980s and 1990s, both in electronic music and in experimental pop. It analyses paradigmatic cases of artists who re-signified these technologies in expressive and narrative terms, before addressing the arrival of Auto-Tune in the late 1990s and its transformation into a global language in pop, hip-hop, trap, and reggaeton. Finally, the article offers a theoretical reflection on five key functions of the artificial voice: aesthetic expansion, expressive potential, narrative impact, modernity/retromodernity, technical assistance, and cultural friction. The paper closes with a coda that discusses the challenges posed by vocal cloning through artificial intelligence and the new aesthetic, legal, and cultural scenarios it opens up for the future of music.

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Author Biography

Jordi Roquer González, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, España jordi.roquer@uab.cat

Jordi Roquer González (Barcelona, 23 February 1974) holds a PhD in History of Art and Musicology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where he is currently Professor in the Department of Musicology. For ten years he also taught at TecnoCampus Mataró (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), coordinating the Audiovisual Media degree for three years. His research is carried out within the MUSC–SSIT group at UAB, where he also coordinates the MRT subgroup, dedicated to the study of technologically mediated music in its multiple forms. He serves as director of JoSSIT – Journal of Sound, Silence, Image and Technology (UPF), a peer-reviewed journal fostering academic debate on sound and audiovisual culture. His main research lines include new approaches to recorded sound analysis, technologically mediated listening, popular music production, and the cultural and technological history of mechanical music. He has been principal investigator of several sound preservation projects, such as the digitisation of pianola rolls for the National Library of Spain (2016), as well as projects for the Music Museum of Barcelona (2014), the Library of Catalonia (2012) and the Museum of the Mediterranean (2012). He is also a member of the Governance and Infrastructure Committees of the Digital Humanities Laboratory (HDLab) at UAB. As a musician, he has participated in more than twenty record productions spanning pop, musical theatre and cinema.