The Sound Memorial for the Veterans of the Vietnam War is a six-hour long composition, a reading of the names of the service members who died during the Vietnam War. The Sound Memorial is a fixed media work performed as an eight-speaker installation. The work was composed from 210+ voices and over 700 hours of recording. The memorial resurrects the service member’s names by propagating them within a defined space, allowing the name to reverberate within a room and take on a whole new life.

Names are believed, by many cultures, to possess the spirit and character of a person, and in today’s society are still used as a means of identification and reputation. Family members, lost pets, old friends have specific and unique memories attached with their persona, their name.

Daily, we are surrounded by monuments of bronze and stone and are overwhelmed by images and photographs of our historical past. What can the sound of a name accomplish in the realm of the remembered? The Sound Memorial for the Veterans of the Vietnam War is dedicated to those 58200+ service members who have fallen and to their friends and families who have not forgotten.