Ears Have Eyes

EMERGENCE

Posted by jellyfishwish on

EARS HAVE EYES // Episode 42
Airing Wednesday, August 13, 2025 at 8 pm MST
on CJSW 90.9 FM, NAISA, & Golden Co-Op Radio

EMERGENCE:
journeys through water, matter, and form

FEATURING:
Manja Ristić & Mark Vernon
Nathalia Grotenhuis

This program is co-hosted by Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett and edited by Caitlind Brown. Thanks to CJSW, Golden Co-Op Radio, and NAISA (especially Kaamil, Claire, and Darren) for supporting the show.

EARS HAVE EYES is a monthly sound art radio program airing on CJSW 90.9 FM in Calgary/Mohkinstsis, Golden Co-op Radio in Golden, BC, and NAISA Radio in South River, Ontario. You can listen to podcasts of previous episodes here.

For our languid August episode, we’re listening to two projects by artists reflecting on ancient Greek mythology and philosophy: The Odyssey by Homer, as seen through the eyes of Calypso, and Hyle & Eidos, understandings of matter and form first posited by Aristotle. These works are watery, abstract, mesmerizing, and elemental ~ a perfect end to Summer.

Listen Here

Thanks to the participating artists and our friends at CJSW, NAISA, and Golden Co-op Radio!

Manja Ristić & Mark Vernon

Manja Ristić was born in Belgrade 1979. Violinist, sound artist, curator and researcher mostly active in the field of electro-acoustics, instrumental improvisation & experimental sound related arts. Graduated at the Belgrade Music Academy, then gained PGDip at the Royal College of Music, London

Mark Vernon is a Glasgow based sound artist whose current work is focused on concepts of audio archaeology, magnetic memory and nostalgia. At the core of his practice lies a fascination with acousmatic presence, environmental sound, obsolete media and the reappropriation of found sounds. A rich collection of domestic tape recordings; audio letters, dictated notes, answer-phone messages and other lost voices often find their way into his bewitching soundworlds. These diverse elements are distilled into radiophonic compositions for broadcast, multi-channel diffusion, fixed media and live performances.

Calypso’s Dream is a soundscape collection sculpted from the subtle sonic morphologies of the micro-environments on the island of Mljet in the South Adriatic. The collection serves as a conceptual counterpoint to Homer’s Odyssey and a critical reflection on commercial island attractions such as Odysseus’s Cave, where he was supposedly held captive for seven long years by the nymph Calypso. In search of a different gender approach to the ancient Greek myth and its contemporary commercial appropriation, we created a simple narrative from Calypso’s perspective, inspired by the work of the renowned writer Margaret Atwood, who wrote The Penelopiad, and tried to unravel the archetypal mystery by narrating the Odyssey from the perspective of his wife Penelope, who was left for 20 years to defend the kingdom and raise their children.

“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

Nathalia Grotenhuis

Nathalia Grotenhuis is an interdisciplinary artist, sound artist, percussionist, and performer. Various exhibition formats document her artistic work in the fields of sound installations, video-sound work, and photography. She performs her own compositions and improvisations, performances, and interpretations of well-known percussion literature at exhibitions, concerts, and interdisciplinary art events.

Concert performances, installations, improvisations, and exhibitions have taken her to venues including the Saarland Artists’ House, the Walkmühle Artists’ Association, the Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen, the Opening Festival Trier, Flux4Art at the Landesmuseum Mainz, the AKM in Koblenz, the Museumsnacht Paderborn, the Luxembourg Art Week, and the Ensemble exhibition at Saint Innocent Montcelin.

Since 2018, she has been working on interdisciplinary art projects with Violetta Richard in the artist duo pulsIV.

Aboute Hyle and Eidos:

“The four elements of earth, fire, water, and wind have been part of the fundamental scientific understanding of the structure of nature since ancient Greece up until the 17th and 18th centuries.

The title Hyle & Eidos is a term from Aristotle’s theory of the elements and describes matter and substance from which a form emerges. Eidos is the title of the video work. Hyle became the title of the corresponding sound installation. Both works can be seen and heard independently of each other, but they can also be presented as a single unit.

In the sound installation, sounds from nature are combined with technology. Furthermore, sounds and noises produced entirely digitally are inserted. Concepts from the theory of the four elements and the digital world are also added through a PC voice.

My question in this work is: Where can the four natural elements be found in today’s everyday life? Digital possibilities are creating a new world beyond physical reality. How can these be united? What is real?

2021 / 2024″

Thank you to the artists & listeners!
Special thanks to CJSW.

Want to share your sound art on future episodes of EARS HAVE EYES?

Visit this link for more information.

Leave a comment