Location: Hay Festival 2025
Date: May 21st May - 31st May
Audience: 1000 unsuspecting festival attendees 

Launched at Hay Festival, Vocalize is a trojan horse immersive installation tackling the growing issue of AI Voice cloning.

I worked as the Immersive Creative Director activating and  staging this urgently needed prototype. It was designed by digital artists Francesca Panetta, Shehani Fernando and Halsey Burgund, in collaboration with Stephen Fry who lent his digital twin after being a victim of voice cloning himself. 

Vocalize is an entertaining interactive experience with a promise: actor Stephen Fry and his AI clone want to make YOU the next global star in voice over work. 

It has been designed to shock. Then educate you on how both the individual and our society needs to approach this advanced, and furtive challenge.

This provocative immersive experience builds your voice reel, coached by Stephen’s AI clone, only to steal your voice and lay it over a series of personalised, dubious and sometimes horrifying satirical adverts.

The conceit works: it is highly arresting and deeply emotional hearing your voice utter views so polarised from your own. 

Using a mixture of voice cloning, LLMs and original scripting, this thought provoking piece will make you aware of, and viscerally feel, the capabilities of AI and manipulation.

It will make you think twice about the crossroads that we’re at.

Disinformation powered by artificial intelligence is one of the biggest threats of our times. Synthetic media and deepfakes are harming personal reputations, and have even broader implications for democratic processes when misused by malicious actors.

Already, voice clones are being used to scam innocent people into giving money, creatives are unhappy about the potential impact of AI on their industries and even Open AI are delaying the launch of their own voice cloning tool due to concerns over misuse.

Previous to designing Vocalize, Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund were the team behind the 'In Event of Moon Disaster' the Richard Nixon deepfaked Apollo moon-landing installation.

Vocalize has plans to tour in 2025 and 2026.