Welcome back to our CLCF profile series, where each month we interview a CLCF researcher to hear more about their projects (check out our previous profiles here). This month, we’re chatting with Aline Zara, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto and CLCF research assistant. Aline is an artist and doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Information, supervised by M.E. Luka. They activate research-creation methods to explore voice, sound, identity, performance, community, and AI. Apart from co-founding BEEP zine and working on the AI and marginalized media archives mapping project, their research focuses on AI-generated voices at the intersection of critical voice and sounds studies, trans feminist science and technology studies, performance studies, disability studies, and queer studies. Their doctoral research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Aline, left, from BEEP zine launch
CTM 2024: Research Networking Day, Module 1 »Sounding AI«
Images courtesy of Aline Zara
Rafael: In a nutshell, who are you as a researcher?
Aline: This is an interesting question because who I am as a researcher is in the process of evolving, especially with and around conversations about AI.
Research-creation and other transgressive methods have been a defining part of who I am as a researcher so far. I’ve been activating research-creation methods in different ways in my doctoral research and have used AI tools for a number of research-creation projects in the past, although I’ve stepped away from using AI in my research-creation for now for ethical reasons. Lately, thinking about myself as a researcher has been very much connected to how I’ve been actively developing my own research ethics and thinking about how my research can better support the communities I belong to and care about. I’m also gearing up to begin more collaborative parts of my dissertation fieldwork: interviews and speculative workshops with performers, voice actors, storytellers, vocalists, academics in sound/voice/performance studies, speech therapists, people who use voice-related assistive technology, AI-generated voice model developers, and others.
Ask me this question again in two years and we’ll see how my identity as a researcher has transformed. I know I’m excited to see what kind of researcher I’m becoming.
M.E.: Can you share some of your research creation projects or approaches? How do you integrate these approaches with other elements of your academic research?
Aline: Research-creation is a core method of my dissertation and these kinds of creation-based practices are central to how I understand the world in general.
I’ve done a number of research-creation projects over the last few years: Anthology series (nAIrrative Press), in my building, Sgnjmrec Aglprsvx, Alternative techniques for the theremin, The Year 3000, Replay Books, and am currently working on a new project called hmm-AA-t (harm-mitigating AI audio translator). It seems like a lot of projects, listing them like this, but it’s important to say that none of these are meant to be perfect, finished, standalone, exhibitionable pieces, or even a synthesis of the research that I’m doing. I think of my research-creation projects as research-creation sketches, in the same way that someone might draw or test a number of sketches before they start working on a final piece. Using research-creation in this way helps me to iteratively draw out deeper understandings, identify challenges, and generate new research questions at different stages of my research. More than anything, I’m using research-creation as an experimental zone that informs the other elements of my academic research.
Daphne: What’s your star sign?
Aline: I’m an Aquarius, which I don’t think surprises anyone who’s met me.
Aquarians are known for being creative, independent, and eccentric: a little bit out there, a little bit unpredictable, a little bit rebellious. If you swap the “n” and “e” when you’re spelling my name, it spells “alien” instead of “Aline”, which is funny because a lot of horoscope descriptions describe an Aquarius as an alien. Every once in a while I misspell my name like that as a typo, but sometimes I do it on purpose.
In my research, I’m at my most Aquarius when I’m using creative, transgressive, and process-focus methods to push against methodological boundaries and think about new technologies, which is where I like to be most of the time.
Follow Aline’s work with CLCF here.
Research Assistant
Aline Zara (they/she) is a Ph.D. candidate and artist at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information. Their research focuses on voice, sound, embodiment, and AI at the intersection of critical AI studies, voice and sound studies, transfeminist science & technology studies, disability studies, and queer studies.
CLCF Co-Director & Postdoctoral Fellow
Daphne Rena Idiz (she/her) is a Co-Director of the Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) cluster and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC).
CLCF Co-Director & Associate Professor
Dr. MaryElizabeth (“M.E.”) Luka is PI and Co-Director of the Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) cluster and Associate Professor, Arts & Media Management, at University of Toronto, where they examine modes and meanings of co-creative production and distribution in the digital age for arts, culture, and media.
CLCF Co-Director & Assistant Professor
Rafael Grohmann is a Co-lead and Co-Director of the Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) cluster and an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Critical Platform Studies) at the University of Toronto. Rafael is the leader of the DigiLabour initiative and founding editor of the Platforms & Society journal.
