This is the Taryn Simon installation at Cisterne in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Start again | The Lament is an immersive installment in a preserved 19th century cistern under Søndermarken. The piece is comprised of walkways over the still water of the reservoir leading you through a soundscape of mourning coming from all directions, with only a blue strip of lights in the center of the walkway keeping you from walking over the edge. At the far side of the cistern is an arch with one bright blue column of light piercing through the water, extending up and out of sight.

Walking through would be akin to sensory deprivation if it was silent, with the low light and idea of walking on water. The wails of agony and violent banging noises coming from all directions straightened the hairs in the back of my neck, and There were a few times that I felt I was being followed or jumped out of my skin when sound arrested me from a new direction. That being said, this is the single most impactful art installation I have seen in person.

One component I was really interested in was the sparsely lit, unguarded pathway above shallow dark water, with the grate of the path partially obscuring the guiding light. this might have been more of a logistical choice than anything else, but it made me think of predetermination. You can choose to step off of the given path but it will always result in getting your feet wet. it’s uncertain if you will get your feet wet and step back onto the platform or get your feet wet and drown. Despite the predetermined path, you can walk through the course one hundred times and have a slightly different experience each time with all of the audio sources running on asynchronous loops. We walked through twice, once forwards and once backwards.

The stated theme of the installation was grief. Most of the agents of the soundscape were dissonant semi-melodic vocalizations, many of which sounded vaguely like hymns. At certain points you would be abruptly arrested by a piercing shriek or harsh banging, as if against bars. grief is random and violent and it sneaks up, cutting through the noise of rationale. The exhibit is designed to strike fear, or at least apprehension, at hearing people you can’t see begging for your attention all around you, their tones clashing together, making any individual song basically unintelligible. I thought a lot about the idea of grievers as grief-givers. each source is begging to be heard and felt, but in their concurrency you can’t hear or understand any of them until it is cut with the suggestion of violence.