The history of robotic announcements
 

Right, gotta go for lunch. Think of of some interesting robotic voices in shopping malls, lifts, tower blocks etc and post about them. I'll check them out later. I assume a lot of them will have female tones, because that's the way it turns out. Sexist robots!

I've long had a soft spot for the "vehicle reversing" announcement on dust carts. I wonder if the Fun Lovin' Criminals' dust carts had the same announcement in an Italian-Brooklyn voice. That would be cool to hear: "Vehicle reviosin... Vehicle revoisin...". Sorry, my Brooklyn accent isn't all that good.

I'm intrigued, Porky, did your original post have anything to do with the following, or is it just co-incidence?




Henrik Rylander
Public Loudspeakers: Information & Disinformation
Kning Disk
book + CD (ltd.500)
£12.99

"At noon Japanese time on Aug. 15, a message recorded by Hirohito was broadcast throughout Japan. Citizens gathered around public loudspeakers, heads bowed in reverence; they had never before heard their Emperor’s voice."

Public Loudspeakers — Information and Disinformation by Henrik Rylander is a beautifully photographed and printed document of a power and control system, as common as the CCTV cameras and with a long history of war propaganda, here for the first time revealed and exposed in an art context.

Public loudspeakers in streets, squares, stadiums, arenas, department stores and in connection to public transportation, in the three largest swedish cities; Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö, has been photographed by Rylander during the fall of 2006. The main concept of the work is to illuminate both the fact of how these loudspeakers has in history been an important tool of power through propaganda, and the possible future of an even more Orwellish scenario: The use of public loudspeakers in addition to the CCTV cameras as means of government power and control.

With the book comes also an audio CD titled: Information & Disinformation for Public Loudspeakers. The sound source of the CD is the data from the .tif files of the photographs in the book, processed with various computer software. The result is 58 minutes of powerful drone music filled with information and disinformation.

http://www.secondlayer.co.uk/index/p4587.htm

And here's a link to some of the sounds on the CD: http://www.kningdisk.com/sound/kd021_01.m3u

And a myspace too: http://www.myspace.com/publicloudspe...disinformation

Those TomTom GPS car navigation systems drive me up the wall. A friend of mine uses it all the time, and the bimbo thats supposed to get him from point a to b never stop yapping. She often gives the wrong directions and doesn't sound friendly at all. Heartless cow.

This is an emergency test broadcast.

A lot of the announcements here are female voices with english accents...

No, it didn't, but you are getting repped simply because I was trying to find something relevant (book or cd) that I could get on the subject, other than my own thoughts or recordings. Many, many thanks for that.

Whenever I hear Patrick Allen's voice it gives me the willies (he narrated the Protect and Survive films).

And a few years ago, the announcements at railway stations were done by either him, or somebody who sounded remarkably like him. I kept having the urge to duck and cover.

i like/hate the voices in stations announcing the trains etc.

How about the telescreens in 1984?

At work, a robot voice comes on whenever you push this button it says
"May I have your attention please: welcome to Emerald Falls Family Recreation Center. While riding on the Formula track please keep the following safety rules in mind. The seat restraints go over both shoulders. Pull red tabs to loosen and the green tabs to tighten. Make sure that you and your passenger are securely builted. The gas is on the right and the brake is on the left. Make sure you can easily reach and operate both pedals..."
yadda yadda. That's not all of it, but I can't even beleive I actually typed that much of it