HOW LOUD IS TOO LOUD?

Seo Hye Lee in collaboration with Irumee Pai and Karen Tebbutt (2023)

How Loud is Too Loud? photo: George Torode

Can AI decide what you hear?  

Humans have been modifying their bodies for millennia, with technological advances in bioengineering, prosthetics and implants enabling huge improvements in healthcare and assistive technologies. How might AI shape our sonic experience of the world and transform the future of hearing healthcare?  

Drawing on her experience of hearing loss and being a cochlear implant recipient, Seo Hye Lee presents an individual’s lived experience of sound in this visual and auditory installation. A series of tones is played, mimicking a hearing test to fine-tune a cochlear implant.  The user is asked if their experience of that sound is ‘too loud’, ‘too soft’, or ‘normal’. The artist considers how this wording really relates to something as personal as the experience of sound and wonders how - with the intervention of AI - these decisions might be made for them in future. 

TRANSCRIPT

0:02-0:13 During this hearing test, you are going to hear a series of beeps and sounds. Then, you decide if the sound is too loud, normal, or too soft. 

0:15-0:22 Low-frequency tone plays

0:23-0:31 Low-frequency tone plays

0:33-0:38 High-frequency tone plays

0:40-0:45 Medium-frequency tone plays

0:47-0:52 Medium-frequency tone repeats

0:54-0:57 High-frequency tone plays

0:59-1:02 High-frequency tone repeats

1:04-1:07 High-frequency tone repeats

1:09-1:17 Medium-frequency tone plays

1:18-1:20 Was the sound too soft?

1:21-1:28 Medium-frequency tone repeats

1:29-1:31 Did it sound normal for you?

1:32-1:40 Low-frequency tone plays

1:42-1:50 Low-frequency tone repeats

1:53-1:58 Medium-frequency tone plays

2:00-2:02 High-frequency tone plays

2:03-2:04 Was this too loud?

CREDITS

Commissioned by Science Gallery London
Artist: Seo Hye Lee
Researcher: Irumee Pai, School of Biomedical and Imaging Sciences and St Thomas' Hearing Implant Centre, King’s College London
Audiologist: Karen Tebbutt, St Thomas’ Hospital

SEO HYE LEE is a UK based South Korean artist utilising a multidisciplinary approach to creating new forms of narrative. Drawing on her experience of hearing loss and of being a cochlear implant user, Seo Hye explores the world both with and without hearing through the mediums of drawing, moving image and installation. Website / Instagram

IRUMEE PAI is a consultant ENT surgeon at Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London. She specialises in ear conditions and hearing implants in adults, including cochlear implant surgery. In addition to a busy clinical practice, she has a keen research interest and has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications as well as two book chapters. She is currently studying for a part-time Ph.D. at King's College London.