Making a deliberate decision to present only the voice may assist the ‘making present’ of those who cannot be physically present (for example, those who can’t show their face).
The term ‘acousmatic sound’ means an invisible sound source, and can be relevant to voice. The term comes from ‘the Acousmatics’, pupils of the philosopher Pythagoras who listened to him deliver his lectures from behind a curtain (it was thought that visual distraction would impinge on the purity of his teachings.) In acousmatic art, one hears sound from behind a "veil" of loudspeakers, the source invisible.
#illusionofpresence
This connection explores the difference between reading a play script, and a live performance where the reading out loud *is* the event - where people's efforts and the risks involved in getting involved are the point of the event: these may be referenced within the content (eg OK OK) or not (Your Words in my Mouth), but the fact is that the gap between the reader and that of the person whose words they are incorporating is never fully closed. The unrehearsed participant can never be a fully transparent 'servant' of the text.
The subject of Kaegi's animatronic-robot performancen 'Uncanny Valley', Thomas Melle, is himself a writer and was invited to write much of the text. The writing has an urgency and honesty that allowed me, as a viewer, to emotionally 'buy into' the robot in the same way I would if Melle were performing himself. The subject of the Christian holy theme park 'Tierra Santa', in Argentina, is of course God. God apparently created everything (not just this theme park). His and Jesus's voice is heard at various points in many of the animatronic shows that are staged there. For most visitors, suspension of disbelief is a given: it comes suspended. And for them too, the writing has an urgency that allows them, as viewers, to emotionally 'buy into' the robots in the same way they would if God were speaking Himself.
Presence which theoretically should not be present is a very intense form of liveness.
The spectre of death (conjured into the now) is very 'live'.