The Thames haunts the passages below Somerset House in an immersive sound and video intallation.
Literally on the doorstep of the River Thames, Somerset House was once the home of Admiral Nelson's Navy Office. Direct access to the river might have been cut off long ago but the naval legacy is still indelibly etched into the subterranean passages far below. Here, beneath the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Courtyard, where the water stained bricks skirt a narrow tunnelled, lightwell passage, leading out to the Great Arch on the Embankment, the legacy of the great river is all too apparent. Add to this the immersive sound and video installation, taken from recordings made by sound artist Bill Fontana along a one-hundred mile section of the Thames, and you'll feel as though the River, murmuring faintly in the traffic jam background, is closing in.
Billed as an acoustic and architectural journey, the river returns to roar in the lightwells once more. As you head down the steep stone steps towards the beautiful, hidden pathway below, a bell chime slices through the silence and water trickles and rushes through the air, dot to dotting a large-scale sonic map that courses through the narrow space. You are totally immersed in the voice of the river as it both roars and thrashes about, and then wanes into a tranquillising ebb swashing to and fro.
In the prison-like dark and dingy coal holes lining the passageway, video projections bounce off the brickwork, penetrating the obscurity. This sequence of video installations are visual manifestations of the sound waves coursing through the air. In one of these holes a series of what look like railway sleepers are drenched in persistent, undulating echoes; a couple of paces away in another arch, a metal pipe protrudes from the side of the wall and lines of metal rods rattle and vibrate in the background. A heap of rubble and broken up slabs is piled high in a third coal hole, as flickers of rippling water are projected over the mess. At the end of the passage, a blurred projection of a solitary buoy bobbing in the turbulent Thames is slightly sea-sickening.
The whole thing is atmospheric, claustrophobic and even a bit unnerving – there's nowhere to head to except forwards, where a cavernous underground tunnel opens up onto the passageway. Inside its damp floorboards and constant water drips make you feel as though you are in the bowels of a creaking vessel, heading out to sea. Straight ahead, a film of pedestrians and cars sweeping across a busy Tower Bridge mingles in with this drip-dripping.
As you move round the corner the whole fabric of the tunnel shakes as though a railway rattles above. The vibrations get progressively louder and the resonating acoustics are undeniably impressive: for a moment I feel like I'm trapped in either a giant bell or a labyrinthe, with a blood thirsty Minotaur laying in wait. By this point the whole room is shaking and the floor beneath my feet shudders and pulsates. Massive speakers located in arched concaves in the tunnel wall pound the floor with their river noises and high-pitched shrieks. If you're not even a little spooked by now, check out the headstones of Edmund Fortscue Esq, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, embedded in the wall, flanked by two other departed souls.
Have you ever had that feeling when you step off a boat and you feel unsteady on your feet? This has a similarly disorientating effect. On leaving, I cast a last backwards glimpse from above and half expect to see the river swilling far below, and maybe a stowaway or two lurking in the shadows pursued by that Minotaur. My imagination really does run riot at times.
Bill Fontana - River Sounding is on at Somerset House 15 April-31 May.
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