“Voice Gems” is a curated and innovative vocal archive that translates vocal recordings into precious precious stone sculptures that this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos is brought to the collaborative digital exhibition “Messages of Hope” curated by the London artist of the new Harry Yeff media. The project generates unique digital gems from voices. Each voice recording is sent through the Voice Gems system made up of 200,000 particles, which are sculpted by assigned characteristics such as volume, pitch and harmonies found in each voice’s data. The “Voice Gems” system is the culmination of 10 years of theory, research and development by Harry Yeff and Trung Bao.
“Our voice has more power and potential than most of us believe. It affects others, just as theirs affects us ”, reads the project website. “The human voice is an incredibly sensitive and powerful tool that allows us to communicate and connect with each other, as well as convey empathy, understanding and a whole spectrum of other emotions and feelings.”
«The pandemic – explains Klaus Schwab, founder and executive president – has brought far-reaching changes. In a world full of uncertainty and tension, personal dialogue is more important than ever ». The concept behind the exhibition is that humans are unique in the animal kingdom in that they communicate verbally through language. Scientists aren’t sure when humans first spoke, but speculate that the language began two million years ago. “Today, with nearly 8 billion voices worldwide and 6,500 identified languages spoken globally, it has never been more appropriate to celebrate the breadth of the human voice.”
The “Messages of Hope” exhibition was commissioned and designed by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Harry Yeff, also known as Reeps100, an artist specializing in the cross-section of the human voice, technology and performance.
Through his work he explores the immense potential of the human voice both within and beyond the realms of spoken language. Pushing it to the extreme and forcing ourselves to question how we communicate and connect to each other.
“Voice Gems” is an innovative project that allows you to sculpt and preserve the voice like 3D digital gemstones. Created by Harry Yeff and Trung Bao, the Voice Gems system sculpts over 200,000 particles with fingerprint-like voice data to create the colors and shape of each gem.