Voice is perhaps the medium that can attract the widest audience, at least until it becomes linguistic or codified information. Therefore, it should be the most effective form of public art. Yet few large-scale works operate within the sound dimension, especially when blending with the bustling, buzzing landscapes of cities like New York. Artist Chloë Bass accepted the challenge by embedding her public artwork into frequency, destroying the frequency of ordinary communication, miscommunication and noise that defines one of New York’s most crowded spaces: the subway system.
If you hear anything, please is a public sound project for Chloë Bass, presented by Creative Time and MTA Arts & Design. Art not only decorates the century-old MTA infrastructure, but also decorates frequency and storytelling, thus occupying space, both sound and information can be moved through the radio. Until October 5, the sound works of bass played intermittently in the middle of the key station, overlapping with the MTA announcement and reaching thousands of riders to introduce poetry and miracles.
Although bass is no stranger to public work, this is the first time she operates through sound. Recently, she has become increasingly interested in developing new forms of monuments. What does it mean to create a huge gesture, i.e., short, or even short gestures – something that is experienced only through direct encounters and not only in space, but also over time? These are the guiding thoughts that led her to enter this work.
“I lived in New York all my life, and for me, getting to where most people have been public transportation,” she told the observer. “If you think of the monument as a scale, the transit itself is already a moving monument, getting better and worse.” For bass, the soundscape that gets involved in the system means creating a temporary but powerful gesture that continues even if it disappears.
Bass’ intervention is fundamentally conducted, and due to its ever-changing change, it faces daily chaos in the New York public transportation system, exposing its confusing, often miscommunication nature. To resist this harsh sound, most riders retreated into a standalone soundscape with their headphones. However, the subway is also a major attraction to meet a group of people composed of New Yorkers. Headphones can isolate riders from the relationship interaction dimension to maintain the private bubble of connection costs.
The work faces and contains these dynamics, thus eliminating the tension between them. “If people need to use headphones on trains, that’s great. If they miss these announcements, that’s great; many riders never hear them, that’s OK, too.” “But for those who do catch them, it turns into a small encounter, even an invitation to be different, even an invitation to interact with space and interact with each other in new ways.” In this case, wearing headphones becomes a missed opportunity – not just hearing about work, but, like in everyday life, encountering stories and opinions of others.
Bass noted that New York’s subway is already full of storytelling. Even the MTA’s posts are marked “Don’t be someone’s subway story” and are designed for police behavior – don’t say it later, whether it’s annoyance or an explosion. For bass, however, the phrase reveals the unexplored potential of the space. “We’re always telling stories about what happened to us in public transportation, and that’s a good thing,” Bass said. “It’s part of bringing us together – showing how we commute, what happened on the way, and people we meet differently than we do. These experiences lift us out of who we are and remind us that we are part of something bigger.”
When conceiving this sound, the bass started making counter-announcements, which is different from the MTA, and is often used as a tool for control and monitoring. “When I wrote them, I kept asking what the existing announcements were actually. Most were a single voice that told you how to act, reminding you of the police, or announcing where you are and what your next stop was.” In response, she introduced content and sound textures that were never included. Some are conversations, dubbed by two or three speakers. Others layered under words with buzz or singing, adding dimensions beyond language. Most importantly, none of them tell you what to do. “They’re not trying to monitor your behavior or anyone else’s behavior; they’re trying to open up another space,” the bass explained.
To promote a more accessible and inclusive environment, bass sound works play in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Arabic, Bangladesh, Haitian kreyòl and Mandarin – fostering cultural and linguistic diversity that defines New York City. To further support accessibility, all ASL translations of announcements are available as videos on the Creative Time website.
By chance, one of the Mandarin announcements made in early testing. “A senior Asian couple happened to be walking where we were testing,” the bass said. “They didn’t know what happened, and when the Mandarin announced their speech, they both startled and then suddenly felt excited. It was indeed witnessing the reaction.”
That moment also highlights a broader issue: MTA’s own announcements rarely accommodate this diversity, strengthening cultural and linguistic barriers that usually don’t attract attention but have real consequences. To ensure her announcement resonates – to engage audiences in a familiar or ease – Bass developed a work of working in depth with community members, participating from the start. She organized cross-sections of focus groups, including teenagers, adults, transit advocates and MTA workers. Each of the 24 poetic announcements begins with a custom tone, designed by Bass in collaboration with artist Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste and a combination of professional performers and everyday New Yorkers.
It is worth noting that artists like Bass (known for their multidimensional exercises rooted in public sculpture and performance), they were chosen to speak out. Her decision reflects a wider shift as sound-based works increasingly appear in bienniums and exhibitions, with artists turning to storytelling, oral traditions and immersive sound environments. This move can be seen as a reaction to the current moment: In a culture full of visual effects, images and text risks turn into white noise – which still sounds can be cut, providing emotional resonance within the narrow range of attention of increasingly sensitive audiences.
Beth saw several reasons for this transformation. “The oversaturation of visual culture is right – we are constantly bombarded by images. But, honestly, almost every sensory dimension is oversaturated these days,” she said. “What’s unique about sound is how it makes us different – how it moves through the body, how it moves through the emotions.”
There is another pragmatic aspect. Sound allows artists to create influential public works with less material and lower production costs. “It’s an expensive moment, and if you can work in a less heavy form, that’s financially helpful for the artist.”
Nevertheless, as Bass’s work clearly shows, sounds have unique functions in public places due to their universality. It can go beyond language and audience barriers more fluidly than many other forms.
Chloë Bass If you hear anything, please Continue until October 5, 2025 at the following subway stations:
- Bronx: Westchester Square (6) and 167th Street (b, d)
- Queen: Court Square (7, G), 74th Street – Broadway (7) and Mets Willets Point (7)
- Brooklyn: Clinton-Warceinton Avenue (G), Fort Hamilton Avenue (F, G), York Street (F) and Atlantic Avenue/Barclays Center (2,3,4,5).
- Manhattan: 163 Manhattan Street (A, C) and Union Square (4,5,6), Fulton Street (4,5), Bryant Park (7), Bryant Park (7), Big Center (S).
