A SMALL PLASTIC SNAKE
& A BIG TOY FROG

‘A Small Plastic Snake & A Big Toy Frog’ is a video that reinterprets a standard linguistic analysis tool—the Speech Accent Archive—through the voices of 12 non-native English speakers. In the video, the hidden architecture of speech is isolated: words dissolve, leaving only vowels pulsing on a black screen. Stripped of context, language becomes a cartography of voices shaped by history, movement, and the subtle force of adaptation.

The piece draws on sociolinguistic research suggesting that vowels alone carry markers of race, class, geography, and cultural background. At the same time, it questions how voice functions as a border-making device in contemporary politics. From automated accent recognition software to AI surveillance tools used in migration control, the project critiques how voices are extracted, categorised, and deployed within systems of verification.

Year — 2025

Medium — Video