"We are concerned here not so much with the almost natural phenomenon of identifying an enemy who is threatening us, but with the process of creating and demonizing the enemy."
Umberto Eco

Sound and language are powerful tools in the construction of imagined conflict scenarios and their aftermaths. ‘Preparations for an Imaginary Conflict' draws on the rhetoric of war and how it has been used to prepare (and scare) the public for a possible attack or to build up the idea of the hostile ‘other’ in a number of real and fictional situations over the last seventy years. The work includes spoken word recordings from public information media, oral history, archival news, texts and field recordings from specific geographical sites.
As I write this, the very same phrases are being used by David Cameron, the prime minister of the UK, as he tries to persuade the country and the government to bomb Syria.