VOICE GEMS: 1000 Year Archive

VOICE GEMS

8th - 26th September 2022

on Oxford Street, London

Pioneering artists and technologists Harry Yeff (Reeps100) and Trung Bao have opened a solo show across the interior and exterior of London’s W1 Curates presented by W1 Immersive on Oxford Street, where they will debut VOICE GEMS: 1000 YEAR ARCHIVE, a collection of the Earth’s most unique, remarkable and vulnerable voices that have been preserved as individual gemstones.

The new 400 square metre immersive gallery will present wall-to-wall digital gemstone artworks from a selection of the VOICE GEM archive, as well as a public digital display across the facade’s three floors of bespoke LED screens. The exhibition will explore the preservation of the most remarkable, influential and critically endangered voices, which encapsulates messages of love, death, hope and legacy.

VOICE GEMS is a generative system designed by Harry Yeff (Reeps100) and Trung Bao. The innovative 200,000 particle system harnesses the fingerprint-like features found in the human voice to generate the colours and the form of the digital and physical one-of-a-kind gemstones, to be stored in the 1000 YEAR VOICE GEMS ARCHIVE. They are the first project in the world to produce gemstone artworks generated from human and animal voices.

Contributors to the archive 2021 - 2022 include Ai Weiwei, Dr. Jane Goodall , Will.i.am, Sir Geoff Hurst, Herbert W. Franke, Felipe Pantone, Sougwen Chung, Reggie Watts, Kenny Schachter, Lily Cole, Aitor Throup, Klaus Schwab, Platon, Justin Aversano, Johann König, Jesse Damiani, Nancy Baker Cahill, Dejha Ti and Ania Catherine and more.

VOICE GEMS will also present a physical lab-grown gem “The Everlasting Memory” for the first time, a collaboration with football legend Sir Geoff Hurst, the first man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final. Hurst´s voice gem is a personal recording, recalling the event. The preservation of this memory is poignant in light of Hurst´s battle with Alzheimer's. Visitors can listen to the immortalised voices that produced the unique gemstone sculptures via QR codes.

The archive also collects vocal phenomena, expanding to AI synthetic voices and the voices of critically endangered species, and institutional collaborations with The World Economic Forum Messages of Hope collection, Koenig Gallery, Francisco Carolinum Linz, Ben Mirin of National Geographic and The Berggruen Institute.

The very first VOICE GEM was created in 2018 from the laughter between two lovers and was used to replace a traditional diamond engagement ring. The project has begun producing collaborative VOICE GEMS collections, manifesting as large-scale new-media, lab-grown physical pieces, installations, and sculptures. Notably Reeps100 and Trung Bao have produced rare pieces from recordings of loved ones who have passed on.

“VOICE GEMS is a technology-driven project which offers a novel form of digital and spiritual ceremony, with the human voice at its core. The gems we have created contain messages of love, death, hope and legacy. People desire a new way to define these themes and preserve memories, and we are providing them with an opportunity to accomplish this. Following our launch, we received hundreds of messages requesting gems from the voices of loved ones. I believe there is room for future traditions around the data and media we leave behind”

Mark Dale, founder of W1 Curates said

“After meeting Harry and finding out more about Voice Gems and the extreme talent he’s already worked with, for us, collaborating with him was a no-brainer. We (W1 Curates) love the fact that the Voice Gems is a saved moment in time that can be related to a loved one, a moment or an iconic figure you’ve aspired to for many years. Voice Gems are not only a powerful art project, it’s a real statement of time.”

Harry Yeff said

"VOICE GEMS is creating a new way to collect, highlight and preserve voices and vocal phenomena. We have already replaced diamond engagement rings, preserved first and last words and now highlighted some of the most unique minds on the planet with voice generated gemstones. People are seeking new ways to highlight our most fundamentally human experiences with technology. VOICE GEMS is a new method of connection.”

Trung Bao said,

“VOICE GEMS is creating a new way for people to experience and connect with voices. Highlighting, preserving and amplifying unique, important voices along with the vulnerable ones through a medium that people can see, touch and connect with through different sensories is something very special.”

www.voicegems.xyz