Neural is a printed magazine that was established in 1993 and focuses on new media art, electronic music and hacktivism. It was founded by Alessandro Ludovico and Minus Habens Records label owner Ivan Iusco in Bari (Italy).
In its very first issue (distributed in November 1993) there was the only translation in Italian of the William Gibson’s Agrippa (a book of the dead) book. Over the years it’s explored cyberpunk, electronic music, networks and BBS, virtual reality, media, science fiction and UFOs and so much more.
So, when the invitation to create an artwork for the magazine I was dearly flattered, especially since Neural has remained essential reading for anyone interested in how technology shapes creativity.
Created in the form of a pull-out removable poster, “VOICE_ERASE.PY”presents a programming code listening to a human voice through a microphone, then converting the speech into text using Google’s recognition system — and then erasing that text completely.
This is code as poetry, using coding language, exploring the fragility of voice in the age of machine listening.
The program listens to a human voice through a microphone, converts the speech into text using Google’s recognition system — and then erases that text completely.
In just a few simple lines, it performs a full cycle of capture, translation, and disappearance. It is both a ritual of self-deletion and a portrait of how technology consumes the human signal. The code executes, but produces nothing visible or audible — only silence after recognition.
VOICE_ERASE.PY embodies the paradox of speaking in a digital age: everything we say is recorded, transcribed, and stored — yet what remains is a distorted, mediated ghost of our real voice.
By scripting its own erasure, the work reverses this logic. It invites the machine to listen, but not to remember. It’s important sometimes to forget, especially at a time when almost everything is stored.
Long may it continue to inspire, challenge, and amplify the voices shaping our sonic and digital futures. More information can be found here.
