Many of my aural decisions in “Trouble” are ethically fraught:
1. My use of text-to-speech means original or natural speech as spoken by Gehrig or Stephen Hawking is apprehended by my listener in a much less literal way. My mediation of a famous spoken line like “today I consider myself the luckiest man…” is less problematic in Gehrig’s case because of the obvious anachronism. My mediation of Hawking, though, might result in the listener misapprehending my text-to-speech as Hawking’s own. (Hawking has famously declined to update his voice-to-speech technology because he considers the speech he hears to be his own; he says he is attached to it.)
2. It may be difficult for the listener to hear the difference between text-to-speaking that is quoted material (as in the cases of Gehrig and Hawking) and my narration (as in the case of “the trouble with ALS is shame”). My narrative uses of text-to-speech sound just like non-narrative elements. All text-to-speech elements, for example, are voiced by “Ryan” and play only in the left speaker.
3. There is a striking contrast between my purpose of challenging the “only two things we know about ALS” and my use of quoted material by Gehrig and Hawking. If it’s true I want my audience to know more, then should I spend so much time mediating what it already knows? Does this video text succeed at disrupting ALS stereotypes?
4. Finally, while I feel my use of Dad’s voice is affective and purposeful, it’s also inevitably lacking context and clarity. I really have no good sense for how the audience will hear this recording. I’m the one who claimed we need to promote an ethos of disability, not attempt to satisfy ourselves or others with emotional identification. Does this recording promote the multivocal/faceted and embodied credibility I care about?