Won award for AI artwork imagining magpies as storytellers
Woollahra Digital Literary Award in digital innovation given to Alinta Krauth.
Main content
Associate Professor Alinta Krauth has been awarded the Woollahra Digital Literary Award in the category of Digital Innovation for her piece, The Songbird Speaks.
The Songbird Speaks explores the improvisational singing abilities of Australian magpies and their potential for combinatory song. These birds are incredibly accomplished vocalizers, with approximately 900 known syllables and the ability for a four-octave register.
"I suspended disbelief almost immediately upon activating this story. The use of technology was captivating and exciting. The idea that I was somehow able to listen to a story from another species was genuinely thrilling," wrote Woollahra judge Brett Osmond, emphasizing the immersive nature of Krauth's work.
Mystery of animal communications
"I'm particularly overjoyed to represent this category, and I love that this category exists, as it recognises me not just as a writer but as a coder," says Krauth.
"I think sometimes it gets forgotten that 90% of the gruelling work done to produce what digital writers produce involves sitting in front of a screen struggling with code."
The art piece involves an audio listening device developed using a Australian magpie song corpus and an AI model to translate songs into human language in real time. Users can listen to magpie vocalizations and see visual and written translations on their smartphones.
Krauth's work emphasizes the complexity and mystery of animal communications, suggesting that magpies could be seen as poets or storytellers. "What would a future look like where humans can, more simply and directly, understand the communication signals of other animals?" she asks, drawing parallels between magpies' songs and digital poetry.
