Click – Identity Goundhog Day

Virtual reality offers the myth of presence; technology can only reward with vicarious pleasure. If your identity is tied up with memory, what happens to that idea when memories disappear, and can tech that enables life-logging at least arrest if not reverse this loss? The idea of being able to store your voice, to bank it, for people with degenerative voice conditions, has informed researchers into the latest voice synthesisers, but if you lost your voice what impact would a restored synthesised version have on your sense of your identity?

Click is joined by an expert panel in the Media Café at Broadcasting House in London, to discuss how technology is increasingly shaping our identities: Neil Harbisson, a composer who was born colour-blind and who has an electronic eye implanted in his brain that allows him to hear colours; Cathal Gurrin has been wearing a life-logging camera for the last 10 years recording his every action; Phillipa Rewaj and Rupal Patel are research Speech and Language experts who have looked into collecting people’s voices for regeneration via synthesisers.

(Photo caption: Click – Identity Day © BBC Henry Iddon)

Producer: Colin Grant