The Uncanny Valley of Authenticity (2025) is a piece for SATB autotune choir, three percussionists and live electronics. In six movements, the choir (mic’d) manipulates midi controllers through a range of effects that distort our understanding of the human voice throughout.

The work confronts the tension between irony and sincerity in contemporary culture, particularly as shaped by the internet and social media. In digital spaces, communication often oscillates between self-protective irony and a desire for genuine connection, and art itself has taken up irony as a defensive mechanism, a way to express what we truly care about while shielding vulnerability. By processing a live choir through Auto-Tune: a tool historically tied to both correction and aesthetic manipulation, the piece situates the human voice in this liminal zone, where intimacy and estrangement coexist.

The text represents a variety of sources that have influenced American internet culture.

I. 1 Corinthians 13:12 and The Brain is wider than the Sky by Emily Dickinson.

II. A collection of women’s magazine self- help quotes from 2000-2011.

III: The Frequently Asked Questions page on scientology.org.

IV. Quotes from influencer/celebrity apology videos.

V. Quotes from men’s alpha-male online self-help courses.

VI. Original text- partially constructed/collaged from the writings of Elliot Rodger.

The audio samples are taken from a pop-up table interview session I did at the University of Michigan on October 16, 2025. They represent some of my favorite answers to the questions I posed on that day, the most relevant of which being:

“When was the last time you felt you were truly yourself?”