This immersive, mixed-media exhibition recreates the acoustic environment of a naturalistic “babbling brook” using the typing sounds of robotic computer keyboards as a sonic source material. This installation leverages the unusual acoustic phenomenon of simultaneous keyboard typing sounds emulating the soundscape of a stream of running water. As such, forty computer keyboards are clustered together to form a physical river within the space.

Powered by AI large language models, each keyboard is prompted to type out various text related to the ‘sound of water’, which is then broadcast to the audience via analog TV screens. They conversate with one another about content related to water and sound, touching on historical events, scientific description, poetry, and other philosophical musings. As the keyboard ensembles type out text, the soundscapes of water streams, rivers, rain, or babbling brooks emerge from the collective sounds of individual keyboards typing en masse.

This installation features many visual component as well such as terranium habitats, CRT monitors, TVs, speakers and vintage sound devices inhabit the ‘babbling brook’ to form a hybrid ecosystem, where nature is simulated through artificial means.

This piece is a sonic meditation on the notion of concurrent “streams of consciousness” in the 21st century world where a hyperreal soundscape arises via emerging AI technology. Here, the keyboards “babble (on)” about the sound of water while inadvertently imitating or approximating the very sound they are describing, a process that uniquely connects the word, ‘babble’, with its onomatopoeic function.