sourceforge.net

SYMPOSIA: Ensoniment of Plato's Symposium

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The ensoniment of Plato's Symposium begins as a free, open source software project hosted on Sourceforge.net called Symposia. It is a multimodal, multiliteracy aware programmed approach to creating virtual realities by processing Plato's Symposium and surrounding, mostly later, texts. Concurrent text to speech processes pronounce the Socratic dialogue as if it was spoken by ten speakers arranged as in the implied virtual setting of the story. Venturing beyond the typical subvocalized expectations of consumers of alphabetic, visual characters in written texts, the potential sonic environments this software sound system might produce challenge ocularcentric conceptions of human subjectivity, and invite rethinking posthuman, cybernetic, program-using and program-writing identity. The project is designed for a doctoral dissertation in texts and technology, digital media studies, and the philosophy of computing.

Proposed Features

  • Automated text-to-speech performance in various languages using multiple, sound-enabled computers.
  • Integration with an omnidirectional virtual auditory environment.
  • Polyglot, many-at-once variations of the original text.
  • Processing Plato's Symposium and surrounding, mostly later, texts.
  • Sonic experiments involving inline commentary and other effects.

Note: Obtain proof of concept development code via the trunk of the the project Subversion repository.