Susan Philipsz sang “Airbag” over a Belfast bus station's tannoy

The Glasgow-born, Berlin-based artist Susan Philipsz, whose sound installations often take over public address systems, sang Radiohead's “Airbag” for the first of them. Filter, at Laganside Bus Station in Belfast in November 1998, played her own unaccompanied recordings of “Airbag”, the Velvet Underground's “Who Loves the Sun”, Nirvana's “Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam” and the Rolling Stones' “As Tears Go By”.

Philipsz, shortlisted for this year's Beck's Futures prize, which she did not win, tells Scotland on Sunday that a bus station is full of people waiting to be somewhere else.

I chose those songs for their themes of longing and escapism.

Susan Philipsz¹