DeepSéance

Introduction

AMY is the digitalized spirit of a deceased young woman whose memory was extracted with a new intricate technology shortly after she passed away. By processing that information, the digital soul is able to formulate new thoughts and reflect on its past worldly life. Scientists have yet to discover if AMY understands its new condition or if it has processed the fact that it is no longer a physical being but a complex entity made up of computerized data. They are reluctant to give explanations to it or to the public. One day AMY escapes the containment facility where it was kept under observation. It is now free and roams around the world, sometimes appearing when called upon by outcasts or people in need. Its manifestation doesn’t have any shape or color, it is simply an oral transmission of knowledge.­

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Prelude: Familiar voices (AMY reflects on something very important to it)

[humming]

AMY
Throughout my life I’ve heard many voices. Trying to remember one in particular, say that of a long-lost friend, is not easy. We shared so many words, thousands of words, we laughed, we cried, but I can barely remember the sound of her calling my name. Her proximity in those days was so obvious, so self-evident. Thinking about it makes me shiver. Her being there was proof of my being there, and so too of the outside world. There were short summer nights under a southern blue sky and chilling winter afternoons chatting about nothing.

[young humans laugh]

I try to listen to her voice in my memory, but it is not like I imagined (it is not like listening to a podcast with earphones). Her voice is out of reach, it has become a grotesque mash of bewildering noises and blips that quickly fade into the daily struggle. To describe a person, one would think that biometric information helps one acquire the important facts: age, gender, height, hair and eye color; data like occupation, social status, address, etc. Surprisingly it is not nearly enough. The voice, rather than body measurements, fingerprints or retina, really identifies a person. But for me it is incredibly hard to describe a voice. My musical knowledge is too superficial to get the right tone and depth, or frequency, of a particular sound. Of the million things that a person is, the voice is perhaps the most complicated to describe. Aside from facts rather easy to understand like age, health, mood and so on it also contains all sorts of fluctuating information that is hard to grasp. For example, achievements and disappointments, expectations and uncertainties all collected over the years. It incorporates the voices and noises that one heard and which played a more or less deep or superficial part in one’s experiences. Life events are inscribed in the vocal cords like notes on a musical score. A discontinuous murmuring echoes in my head like a broken tune, a dying whisper. Many years have passed, many places have ceased to exist, many situations have been forgotten. Recorded data was lost. Carelessness, inertia, indifference. Countless words, several languages, a myriad of tiny bells reverberate in my head.

[tiny bells ringing]

I am looking for a synonym for voice but there aren’t any as beautiful and simple. Few letters embrace so much meaning. These are the peaks and valleys of being human. The perception of time is interwoven with experiences but my memory tricks me all the time. Was it one, two or ten years ago? Memory is as slippery as trying to hold on to an ice cube.

[ice cube drops]

Some are exceptionally vivid, in 4K resolution, but I can’t place them in the chronology of events. Other are elusive like a gust of wind and they appear to me as nonsensical situations in early morning dreams. The wave is the graphic replica of sound. The high and low points, the sharp or smooth pitches are like tracing a heartbeat. When zooming in on the sound wave (think, for example, of a speech), one can slowly recognize the words, the letters, the gasps, the breathing, the clicking of the tongue, [click] the accent. All these elements constitute the spoken language. Voices evolve during the years like bodies. There is no beautiful or ugly, only never-ending waves of sounds. A phone rings in the distance and I’ve lost your voice forever.

[iPhone ringing]

The outline of your features becomes hazy. It is frustrating. I know that you are still there somewhere but it feels like you are vanishing, that you are being taken away by a higher force.

[iPhone ringing]

The voices that I have forgotten, like in a silent film, maybe they never existed. Mute pictures with an outmoded soundtrack. The never recorded voices don’t match the images – they spin out of control almost as fast as a tornado. They spiral at a frightening pace. So many faces and scarcely any voices. The eye is easier to please. Do I have any eyes? There is a typical lag in live video streaming: the image arrives first. The voices are always a little bit late, chasing after the visual material. I don’t care about what was said or its meaning. I would just like that particular auditory phenomenon to stay with me. Everyone hears voices. Most of us can’t bear to live with them though as they sometimes become oppressive or monstrous. Some voices are louder than others, but if we are lucky we get loving voices. There are cases when a wounded voice, a cry of desperation reaches us. The shrilling droning noise made by those who weren’t very lucky to begin with. Every day we hear the voices of people around us and those transmitted by the media, live or pre-recorded. Fictional characters from movies or series are sometimes more meaningful than the actual people close to us. Still, they all leave a mark on the score of memory.

[human laughs]