My sound study was an experiment to see whether I could make art or something beautiful out of something considered ugly. Namely: ‘feminine noise’; ‘transfeminine noise’ & the trans voice; and the glitch. It was about how trans voices might be seen by others as unwanted and how they might then attempt to ‘silence’ the trans voice by trying to establish power with their voice. In my critical reflection I want to examine where this aim was successful and where it wasn’t.

Firstly, I think this question is partly a valid one but is too vast and required more thought and research. My inquiry into this topic is limited. Perhaps, given the brief and timescale that I had – I could have gone with a simpler idea, and researched, explained and justified it more thoroughly. Instead, I gave a lot of attention to exploring my research question and not enough attention to critically reflecting, developing and analysing my work and specifically critical use of audio and sound design techniques through my blog posts. I also have not explored theoretically my research question to a full enough extent in my blog posts, making only a few brief references to my overall project. Had I created a more integrated body of work, creating blog posts which more thoroughly critiqued my sound study, the project may have been more successful.

However, I think the project is good as a sort of thesis statement for the research question. I think my work was successful in its sonic exploration of queer communications. I think the most effective parts of the sound study were the overlapping voices and the explicit reference to a range of queer and trans artists that I made. This was a good way to incorporate a multitude of trans ‘voices’ into a piece largely about the trans voice.

However, my main takeaway and lesson is that I think my idea of the trans voice is actually very broad and many trans people will feel completely differently about their voice. So, I think I hesitate to comment on ‘the trans voice’ through art. I think a better line of inquiry going forward might be ‘how do I feel about my voice as a trans artist?’ for my own personal expression and also moving beyond dysphoria, as we have far too many stories about trans pain and dysphoria. It’s not that I was trying to make a sound study about dysphoria, but I don’t think that the idea that trans voices would largely be seen as unwanted, although well-meaning, is a wholly valid one. Many trans people will have no hang-ups or dysphoria about their voice, while others will have many.

I’m not that proud of this finished piece. I’m glad I took risks and experimented and the process was really interesting – I think it was a good start to answering the research questions I was interested in. However, I wouldn’t showcase this as an example of who I am as a sound artist.

References:

Greenberg, S. (2023) ‘Accenting the Trans Voice, Echoing Audio-Dysphoria’, in P. Rangan et al. (eds) Thinking with an Accent: Toward a New Object, Method, and Practice. California: University of California Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.148.m.