"Cruel folk you are, unmatched for jealousy, you gods who cannot bear to let a goddess sleep with a man." (Calypso to Hermes, who has just ordered her to release Odysseus. Homer, Odyssey 5.120).
“Calypso’s Dream” is a soundscape collection sculpted out of subtle sonic morphologies from the underwater and coastal environments, lake flora and fauna, marshlands, and forested areas of the island of Mljet. Manja Ristić and Mark Vernon, internationally established musicians in the fields of sound art, experimental music, and radio art, are responsible for the research, field recording, and composition. The work will also be adapted for radio, premiering on the local station Radio Korčula, and subsequently disseminated worldwide through independent digital media and national frequencies.
For many years, the tourist offer of Mljet has involved the use of Greek mythology and the myth of Odysseus, whom the goddess Calypso enchanted and trapped for 7 long years on a distant exotic island. After barely escaping the sorceress Circe (whom the people of Korčula have claimed for a long time), he found himself stranded on the next island with a beautiful nymph.
We could say that the appropriation of Homer’s thoughts, from the construction of the grand Hellenic epic to the main tourist offering of a small island in an entirely different sea at the beginning of the 21st century, has truly taken hold. We know that various peoples inhabited the islands before the Greek fleets arrived, thus settling the entire region. Numerous archaeological sites and traces of distant history indicate a completely different landscape. And everything that history failed to record, even Homer, is deeply engraved in the environment that persists to this day. Furthermore, the tourism of the southern Adriatic is its own kind of Odyssey, marked by numerous shipwrecks, losses, and devastation, directly and uncompromisingly affecting the environment shaped over millennia.
In their quest to listen to ancient nature, guided by the concept of mnemosonics – listening to the memory of places – artists will explore the subtle sonic identity of the island, especially its lakes and forested areas where anthropogenic influence hasn’t taken hold. They will then “confront” these recordings, in the form of conceptual counterpoints, with recordings of contemporary life and sound pollution.
But let’s go back to the beginning. Why is the cliff on Mljet, which tourists pilgrimage to, called Odysseus’s cave? Wasn’t Calypso, the daughter of Atlas, the goddess who lived on her hidden island before Odysseus was stranded there? He found temporary refuge there, solely at her will. Then, after 7 years, the gods from Olympus ordered her to release him. According to some accounts, she died of grief after Odysseus’s departure. If he already had his cave, where was hers? If they shared the cave, why isn’t it called Odysseus and Calypso’s cave?
In search of a different gender approach to the ancient Greek narrative and its contemporary commercial appropriation, artists will attempt to construct a narrative from Calypso’s perspective, inspired by the work of the renowned writer Margaret Atwood. Penelopiad, who tried to unravel the archetypal mystery, narrated Odysseus from the perspective of his wife, who was left for 20 years to defend the kingdom and raise their children. “Calypso’s Dream” is an attempt to create a symbolic micro-episode of Penelopiad within the medium of sound art and installation, woven from the dense spectrum of the island’s biophony, instrumental and improvised narratives, critically reflecting on the commercial appropriation of culture, advocating for the importance of listening culture, and emphasizing the urgency of raising ecological awareness.
Coming out September 19th, 2024!!!
all sounds recorded and edited by Manja Ristić & Mark Vernon
hydrophones used for underwater recording by Jez riley French
mastering La Plant Studio
cover art & text Manja Ristić
the release is followed by a PDF booklet containing additional curatorial texts and images of Mljet's many aquatic micro-environments, flora, and fauna.
The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, and the Dubrovnik-Neretva County Department for Education and Culture.