EM: Austria commemorates a range of historical events in 2018: The year of revolution 1848, the founding of the Austrian republic in 1918, as well as the ‘Anschluss’ in March 1938 and the pogrom in November of the same year. The House of Austrian History invited you to create an installation for Heldenplatz – a location that is specifically linked to the events of 1938 in Austrian memory. How did you approach this work? What was the research and working process like?

SP: Firstly, I am honoured to have been asked by the team at the House of Austrian History to create an installation for Heldenplatz. The invitation from Monika Sommer in partnership with the other jury members, Kasper König, Thomas D. Trummer and Stella Rollig, was very generous and I appreciate that. The initial brief was to mark the ‘Anschluss’ in March 1938 and to consider using the balcony where Hitler gave his speech. I know the site from previous visits and I immediately knew, given its history, that it would be a challenge to develop a sound installation for this site. I was careful not to replicate the experience of a single voice on the balcony and I decided to call my intervention The Voices to move away from that idea of a single voice and to speak to all the voices which have come to populate the Heldenplatz over the years. The voices of 1848, 1918, and 1968 are there as well as the more obvious events of 1938. The ‘voices’ that I have recorded are created by rubbing the rim of four different sized crystal glasses. Although abstract, there is a sharpness and a clarity to the sound of the glass that could almost be mistaken for a real voice. It is said that the sound of crystal most closely resembles that of the human voice. The connection between the voice and the crystal creates many associations, not least to the so-called ‘Reichskristallnacht’, and there is a tension and an element of discord in the tones I have chosen. The audio is broadcast from the balcony and transmitted to speakers mounted at four points on Heldenplatz. In some way this is meant to create an absence in the central space occupied by the balcony and to dismantle that idea of a singular voice.

EM: You generally work in a site-specific manner, reacting to the architectonic and spatial, but also to the historical dimensions of a site. How would you describe the Heldenplatz? What struck you about it, what were the specific challenges of the site?

SP: Heldenplatz is one of those spaces where you feel the role of architecture is to express power. You really feel like you are at the heart of the Austro-Hungarian empire with its imposing buildings and wide spaces. But it is also a contemporary urban space. It is used as a thoroughfare and that can seem incongruous. There were spatial and acoustic challenges that were apparent from the beginning. A sound installation that is to be located on the balcony or on the façade of the Neue Burg but that is to be heard on Heldenplatz is a challenge. The scale is quite large and the Heldenplatz is very busy and that already determines a lot of what you can do. The Heldenplatz is used quite heavily as a car park and there are large groups of people passing through on a daily basis. After doing the sound test I knew it would be a much stronger experience if we could extend the sound into the space of the Heldenplatz and not just have it coming from the façade of the building. In the end, we achieved this in the best possible way; expanding the work beyond the Neue Burg and mounting speakers on the temporary parliament buildings as well extends the experience of the work acoustically and conceptually. Bringing the parliament into the work creates a stronger spatial experience of the sound and it also connects the past with the present.

EM: You used crystal glasses to create this ethereal sound – am I right in thinking this was the first time you had used this ‘medium’ for a work? How did you come to this decision and what was it like to work with the glasses as instruments?

 SP: From the beginning, I was thinking a lot about crystal metaphors, the ‘Reichskristallnacht’, the crystal chandeliers hanging in the interior of the Neue Burg, crystal microphones from the 1930s and crystal set radios, which people would gather round to listen to events unfolding. In the end, I have decided to use the very simple technique of rubbing the rim of crystal glasses to create four tones that are in dialogue with each other. The sounds are ethereal and abstract but there is also a tension present that is palpable but undefined. The tones are slightly discordant and the act of rubbing the glasses creates a set of vibrations that could at any moment shatter the glass. I wanted to keep that tension in the recordings. The sounds emanate from the extremities of the space and reach into the centre of the space where they can merge with other tones emanating from the other side.  The sounds are almost at the level of the surrounding environment but they manage to transcend the other ambient sounds of the traffic and the weather. You can hear things through the sound that echoes and chimes with the other sounds around you but at the same time takes you somewhere else.

The sound of glass has a rich history and a surprising number of associations with Vienna. The American musician Marianne Davis toured Europe playing the glass harmonica in France, Germany and Austria. In the final year of his life Mozart wrote scores for the instrument and his Adagio for glass harmonica solo was written for the blind glass harmonica player Marianne Kirchgessner, who also performed in Vienna. However, the sound of glass is not without controversy. It was rumored to induce hysteria and madness. People credited the sound of glass with scaring animals and causing premature births. And tales of deaths during concerts even led to the instrument being banned in certain German cities. The famous physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who practiced in Vienna, played the glass harmonica as part of his therapy for his patients. Mesmer’s therapy was closely connected to hypnosis and I think that’s appropriate because they say people were mesmerized by Hitler’s voice during his speeches.

But to answer your question, it is not the first time I’ve used glass. One of the first exhibitions I ever created was in an abandoned glass factory (Meltdown, 1994) for a project called Beyond Borders in Derry in Northern Ireland. However, I think these sounds can have a different resonance in Vienna and I’m excited to hear them installed.

EM: The Heldenplatz is strongly linked to a collective, mainly visual memory of the speech Hitler gave there on the 15 March 1938. One of the reasons the jury invited you to create a work for this site is your use of sound as a material for your sculptures – so as not to add another layer of visual reference to the site. As opposed to the visual, which creates a distance, sound has a very intimate quality and a direct, emotional effect it is hard to refrain from. At the same time, sound is inextricably linked to the dimension of time and thus also to memory. How would you characterize the emotional quality of your work and its intention?

 SP: Because the space is so imposing and the speech and the subsequent events of 1938 are so frightening, I knew I needed to be much more subtle in my approach. I think sound can create an awareness of space that allows for different memories to come to the fore. The balance is to be subtle but precise and to create a situation where people’s own memories connect with a larger context. Sound can also be emotive. However, with my work you are never fully lost in the sound as it can ground you in the present, while simultaneously heightening your sense of self.

EM: The crystal metaphors you mentioned earlier can also be related to early radio and microphone technologies. You also deliberately apply broadcasting technologies to transmit the sound across the space. What role does this technological aspect play for you?

 SP: I was aware that the speech was broadcast from Heldenplatz and there was a complex array of loudspeakers arranged throughout the space so each individual attending the rally could hear the words spoken from the balcony. I wanted to echo these technologies in my work and also to extend that idea to all the voices. I became fascinated by the notion that when sounds are generated, they never die away completely. This is what Marconi, the pioneer of radio, believed. The idea that all the voices are still there, however faintly, fragmented as cosmic noise throughout the universe is such an evocative notion. Marconi believed he would eventually develop the technology to be able to tune into voices from the past via radio. Since I was a student I’ve been fascinated by the fact that the radio waves one can hear as ‘white noise’ or ‘cosmic noise’ on the radio are actually radio-waves from as far back as the Big Bang and we are actually listening to the sound of the universe expanding!

EM: Do you think the work will have an effect not only on the spatial, but also on the relational perception within the space the sound creates? Might it be possible that people interact in a different way with each other?

SP: I think you’re right, you may become more aware of each other, which is the opposite of what might happen in a more controlled environment, like in a concert hall, gallery or museum space. The sound defines the space and draws your attention to it in a new way. You become aware of the place you are in, and also of the people who are beside you. As you listen you are watching other people listen and that can create a strong but unspoken connection between people. A collective experience of listening, a silent community.

Susan Philipsz studied Fine Arts and Sculpture in Dundee and Belfast, she lives and works in Berlin. She was awarded the renowned Turner Prize in 2010 and carries the Order of the British Empire. In 2018, she is a guest professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Solo exhibitions: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (2018), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2016), Tate Britain, London (2015), Hamburger Bahnhof (2014), K21, Düsseldorf (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2011) a.o. Group exhibitions: Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013), dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012), Sydney Biennale (2008), skulptur.projekte, Münster (2007) a.o. Susan Philipsz works together with the artist Eoghan McTigue.

Eva Meran is responsible for setting up the Department of Education/Learning at the House of Austrian History. She previously worked at the Kunsthalle Wien and at <rotor> center for contemporary art in Graz. She studied Art History at the University of Graz and has a masters degree in Educating/Curating/Managing from the Academy of Applied Arts Vienna.