Desy Macis

This project explores the socio-semiotic transformation of the voice in the post-digital age, focusing on digital resurrection through voice-cloning technologies. In ancient traditions, the voice was understood as an expression of pneuma, the vital breath inseparable from the body; later philosophical and theological thought reframed it as a sign of psychic and spiritual activity capable of transcending corporeality. From Aristotle to Patristic theology and myths of artificial voices, a genealogy emerges that links vocality to presence, interiority, and revelation.
Today, artificial intelligence makes the voice the most easily preservable sign of post-mortem subjectivity. Unlike the body, it can be recreated with high naturalness and transparency, generating a convincing effect of presence and enabling new interactions with the dead. This shift redefines the relationship between voice, body, and spirit, raising crucial questions about sonic immortality and the transformation of mourning practices.
Adopting a socio-semiotic perspective, the project maps grief-tech services and media representations centered on voice and analyzes how artificial vocality resemanticizes traditional categories such as vital breath and resurrection. The artificial voice thus emerges as a “vocal ghost”: not merely a preserved memory, but an active sign-producing device, suspended between continuity with and rupture from the ancient concept of pneuma.