Voice (s) — An Introduction

In this collection of papers on voice (s), the relationship between voice and technology comes to the fore especially in regard to art and aesthetic practice. Special attention is paid to «mute» objects which acquire a voice through technical intermediaries (microphone, synthesizer, tactile sensors, sound recording archives). These mute or inert objects include puppets, buildings (lost places), textiles, silent movies, or smart homes. In this context, the voice appears not as a static attribute of the subject, but as a procedural formation or emergent effect of the interaction of material forces, discursive practices, and technological environments. This special issue contributes to the media archeology of sound, critical media theory, and posthumanist studies of subjectivity, demonstrating that voice acts as a nodal element in the reassembly of social and aesthetic experience not only in the digital age. The presented cases cover a broad spectrum from the mechanicism of the Russian avant-garde to modern neural network synthesizers, from propaganda radio to decolonial textile sound systems, from microphones that afford authenticity to the technically advanved gusli that upholds musical heritage. All this allows us to formulate new research questions about the nature of acoustic materiality and the politics of audibility in techno-cultural landscapes.