long-form audio installation / artistic research / booklet in English & Croatian – containing aural photography, theoretical discourse on the culture of listening, and more...
an attempt to sonify human negligence transformed by Nature’s intelligence.
choreographies of listening deeply embedded in mnemosonic constructs – self-generative sound textures derived from spatial memory imprints.
a field recording practice that involves gestures and site-specific intervention.
poetic appropriation of the memory of a place through observing the intrinsic interrelatedness of the ecological traits and the soundscape.
rediscovering aquascapes – observing water as a primordial formative environment.
sensing the sonic simulacrum. systematic observation of geoanthropology.
the memory of the world as a petri dish.
conceptual listening.
water memory is a musical journey through the subtle relations of sound and aquatic habitats on the island of Korčula and its surrounding archipelago. from the heart of an ancient town to the island’s deepest wilderness, water memory contains a wide array of aquatic and sub-aquatic imprints captured with extended field recording techniques and gently placed in an emotionally charged 50-minute-long ambient composition.
the phenomenology of listening begins with non-obvious relations between the soundscape and the place. and if the places are deeply submerged in layers of geoanthropology it is inevitable to observe its topographies through constant reshaping, the unfathomable history of exploitation, and the systematic struggle of Nature to preserve itself.
in its mnemosonic specifics, water memory exposes the concept of listening to environmental sound and the particularities of the island’s systems ecology – interactions and transactions within and between biological and ecological systems especially concerned with the way the functioning of those are influenced by human interventions.
the music in this work is built around recordings of sound pollution below and above the water surface (due to increased water traffic, sand pumps used for “more ecological” beach filling, sounds of the sea bed covered with artificial gravel, over-betonisation of the lime-stone coast); derelict archaeological sites, abandoned ex-Yugoslavian military sites, abandoned quarries spanning from Neolithic to Medieval times, some of which were still operating until the mid 20th century.
with such a dense “memory field” to be observed both the author and the listeners are exposed to a dizzying amount of content that alludes to relations between the sociology of time and the politics of soundscape as a possible interdisciplinary framework for a better understanding of the memory of place.
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sound, text, images: Manja Ristić
editor: Sonja Leboš
sound mastering: La Plant Studio
design: Nevena Vasiljević
proofreading: Mark Vernon
production, publishing, distribution: ELL Studio 2023
artistic research in collaboration with the UIII / AIIR
water memory is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia