Automatic Listening and the Panacousticon

The emergence of smart devices equipped with microphones, whose use is becoming increasingly common, calls for updated scrutiny. Auditory surveillance is being organized within our acoustic spaces through digital infrastructures whose workings are deliberately obscured and kept from us. The use of these technologies may seem fairly benign at first glance, but I wanted to explore in more detail what this continuous machine surveillance entails, a phenomenon referred to as "panacousticism" by French philosopher Peter Szendy. The field that makes this machinic listening possible is described by the English term Machine Listening, which could be translated as “automatic listening.” Machine Listening describes a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of science and engineering that utilizes audio signal processing and machine learning to derive meaning from sounds and speech. This is what allows us to be “understood” by Siri and Alexa or to recognize a song using Shazam. In my case, I was particularly interested not in speech recognition, but in these technologies that allow us to listen to our sonic environments and extract meaning from them. These technologies are being commercially deployed as software integrated into surveillance cameras, voice assistants, and smartphones.

I have attempted to make visible the inner workings hidden within these new sound recognition tools, while also questioning their uses and confronting myself with this ongoing algorithmic listening. These systems are entering our daily lives, in the smartphone market, voice assistants, or connected home devices. They are quietly entering our cities, taking place in both private and public spaces. Governments collect data for security and control purposes; private companies collect data for marketing, individualized offerings, and improved management. But private companies are now starting to take an interest in security and control, blurring the lines between state and corporate infrastructures. In my view, it is necessary to expose these devices, to demystify them in order to bring them back into public debate.

Photographic credits:
Paul de Lanzac