Susan Philipsz
Slow Fresh Fount, 2021

By entering the silo chambers of Bergen School of Architecture, Susan Philipsz calls into the area to gauge its acoustics. ‘It is an instinctual response,’ she says. ‘By projecting my voice into a space, I measure that space; through the resonance and echo I can ascertain the volume, scale, and depth of that space.’ A measurement through one’s voice, rather than a metric system, can be reorganised as a form of poetic knowledge.

First shown at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Berlin, Philipsz’s seven-channel sound installation Slow Fresh Fount takes its name and point of departure from a 17th-century poem by Ben Jonson, in which the mythical Echo laments the death of Narcissus and asks her surroundings to join her in grief. Borrowing from a musical setting of Jonson’s poem as a four-part madrigal (a sound piece for multiple voices), Philipsz records each vocal line separately — soprano, alto, tenor, bass — abstracting the tones so that listeners hear not only melodic fragments but also the pure resonance they produce.

Singular tones and partial melodies reverberate through BAS’s concrete silos, transforming industrial remnants into spaces of shared listening and reflection. Describing her aims for the project’s iteration at BAS, Philipsz says, ‘In the Bergen Architecture School, I hope to utilise the acoustics of the architecture to create an immersive sound installation that helps us imagine another space beyond the here and now.’ Slow Fresh Fount invites listeners to slow down, tune in, and experience the building not just as a structure but as a resonant collaborator.

Susan Philipsz (b. 1965, Glasgow) is an artist whose work explores the emotional and psychological resonances of sound, as well as its spatial qualities — its sculptural dimension and relationship to architecture — and its potential as a tool to alter individual consciousness. Frequently employing recordings of her own voice, and drawing on a diverse range of musical sources from the 16th century to the present, Philipsz uses sound in public spaces as a means to trigger a heightened awareness in listeners, temporarily changing their perception of themselves in specific places and moments in time. Susan Philipsz has held solo exhibitions at venues worldwide, including Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2014); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2016); and ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark (2023). She received the Turner Prize in 2010 and was awarded an OBE in 2014 for services to British art. Susan Philipsz currently lives and works in Berlin.

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Slow, Fresh Fount

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:
Yet slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division when she sings.
Droop herbs and flowers,
Fall grief in showers,
Our beauties are not ours;
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.

— Ben Jonson