My latest work Sounding Peace, builds on an earlier Arts Council England funded R&D project, Soldier Stories, in which we interviewed a small group of female veterans to talk about peacekeeping and female leadership in the forces, culminating in a test soundtrail What is the Sound of Peace?, geo- located at two locations in and around the National Army Museum, London.

For this new work, I interviewed military veterans and their partners, both in person and online, through workshops and one-to one interviews. I recorded the veterans’ thoughts on peace and peacekeeping and how their experience of military service had affected their ideas about peace in the world. Their answers form the prima materia of an installation in which I collaborated with AI tools to create something truly unique and dare I say, immersive.

The initial interviews were transcribed, edited and ordered using AI tools such as Chat GPT and Evernote and then voiced by AI generated actors to anonymise the responses and to add a sense of the uncanny to what was said. The voices (which sit above the listener’s head) are accompanied by electronic musical drones and binaural field recordings taken at sites of memorialisation, and the work was spatialised at University of Greenwich SOUND IMAGE Spatial Audio Lab, taking Buckminster Fuller’s concept of the Geodesic Dome as a visual inspiration.  The resulting sound sculpture features layers of sound, creating an immersive and interactive environment for the listener to walk into and explore from within.

Sounding Peace was exhibited at Aldershot Military Museum in autumn 2025 using the ECHOES audio geolocation platform, re-imagining memorialisation in the museum space. We also were invited to present the work at the Immersive Experience Network Summit ’25 at the Fireworks Factory in London. We are currently planning a new commission for UNTOLD Museum in Belfast for their grand opening in summer 2027.

A big thank you to our partners, Hampshire Cultural Trust, Royal Irish Regiment Museum, Veterans and Families Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, for their work on this stage of the project.

Sounding Peace is produced by O’Neill Ross.