In armed conflict the idea of ground is profoundly destabilised. Ground becomes unpredictable, hostile – a place of loss, destruction and pain. Soil itself is a recording medium that carries the markers of history. What is trained as a drill is intended to eventually become a reality. Ground Loop combines audiovisual recordings and ground samples collected at training sites of the Dutch Army and NATO forces with techniques that stem from agriculture, geology and forensics research contexts – to render perceptible different modes of violence and draw a complex spectral portrait of the ground. Soil Chromatography visualizes chemical pollutants in the earth into Rorschach-like evocative images. Seismic transducers and ultrasonic microphones are used in order to ‘hear what the ground hears’ during such exercises. CGI models display images of scorched earth that remains after a conflict. Live video from a polarised light microscope presents minuscule details of shrapnel and other military exercise fallout. In such a way audiences witnes a poetic audiovisual investigation of traces and material transmutations caused by different forms of military violence.