S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. by Ross Sutherland

This one is weird. There’s no other way to say it - it will make you feel uncomfortable things that are very relevant to our current world. S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. is a fictional dialogue with a computer being trained to tell jokes by a human writer. Well before an endless parade of thinkpieces on AI, Ross Sutherland’s piece questions the societal role of a creative person and the value we place on creative work. In S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D., sound design is sparse but deliberate - the whole scene takes place in the sound of an empty room, as if you’re hearing a comedian workshop a bit before the club opens. At first the jokes just seem unfunny, but they quickly devolve. Eventually the sound of the room expands as it’s suddenly filled with the anxieties of a human training its replacement and the listeners wondering when it's coming for them. The work is deceivingly simple but in that simplicity, it’s able to evoke the unimaginable. Working with just two voices (well, one real voice) and some room tone, S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. goes deep into the cavernous intersection of passion and fear. This piece is also classic Ross Sutherland. A pioneer of audio fiction, Sutherland is known for his darkly funny scripts presented in unique formats (seriously, check out his audio puzzle series The Golden House). S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. is more subtle than the cinematic wall of sound design we hear in contemporary audio fiction. The writing and performance is what shines, creating a theatrical experience in between the ears. And this piece of theatrical audio fiction has quickly become nonfiction. And not just nonfiction like life, but nonfiction like documentary. Evan Ratliff’s recent series Shell Game explores similar themes, using the host’s body of creative work to feed a voice clone and unleash it on the world and question existence. Together they provide an interesting comparison between comedy written by writers and comedy written by computers. That dialogue between real and fake remains continuously fresh, and Sutherland’s piece continues to be a monument to the creativity of writers. Sutherland’s show Imaginary Advice has been publishing since 2014 and won Gold at the British Podcast Awards in 2018.