Accent Intelligence is an audio investigation of the role of speech in an increasingly digital society.

Fluency is already a currency in every part of the world. But with voice recognition technology being implemented into the fabric of our future lives, having an accent that machines don’t understand is an inescapable boundary. As people continue to form communities of all different cultures and languages, our voices will become even more important in positioning ourselves in the world. The myth of the neutral accent threatens to drown out a multiplicity of voices with a singular speech devoid of identity and story. Imagine the community that both humans and machines could foster by reflecting a fuller and more accurate soundscape of human voice.

This project was created by Katie Pelikan under the guidance of Niels Schrader, Lauren Alexander, and Rectangle Design as part of the Non Linear Narrative Masters program at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.

Special thanks to Connor Golden for his amazing music, which was sampled for these recordings. You can find more of his work here.