Betty McGhee ARHA 251 Susan Philipsz’s Surround Me: A Song Cycle for the City of London A Study of Sound as Audible and Undetectable Jean-François Augoyard defines anamesis as “An effect of reminiscence in which a past situation or atmosphere is brought back to the listener’s consciousness, provoked by a particular signal or sonic context. Anamnesis, a semiotic effect, is the often involuntary revival of memory caused by listening and the evocative power of sounds.” Harkening back to memories spanning 1 different periods of time, anamnesis is the sonically induced, personal recollection of something anywhere from 30 minutes to decades in one’s past. Susan Philipsz’s Surround Me: A Song Cycle for the City of London (2010-11) manifested an anamnesis outside of anyone’s living memory. Covering popular English songs, rounds and madrigals from the late 16th and 17th century, Philipsz projected her voice through horn speakers into six public locations around the 2 Bank of England. The song cycle played on Saturdays and Sundays only from 10 AM to 5 PM, 3 when the usual weekday bustle of London’s financial district was replaced by eerie silence. With a map of the satellite locations’ corresponding lyrics and significance, spectators could proceed through an hour long tour of urban spaces populated by the ambient sounds of cars and church bells, following the sound of Philipsz’s ethereal vocalizations from one location to the next. 4 Abandoning her usual oeuvre of contemporary and folk songs, Philipsz chose late 16th 5 and 17th century English songs for their historical connection to London. In the Elizabethan Age the streets were sonically populated by the voices of traders and stock brokers calling out across 1 Jean-François Augoyard & Henry Torgue (Eds.), (2005), Sonic experience: A guide to everyday sounds (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 21. 2 Susan Philipsz, “Surround Me: A Song Cycle for the City of London,” ArtAngel, 20 November 2018, https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/surround-me/. 3 “E-flux: An Artangel Commission,” E-flux, 20 November 2018, https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/36431/commission-susan-philipsz-surround-me/. 4 Ibid. 5 Susan Philipsz, “Surround Me: A Song Cycle for the City of London,”