Rediscovering the Memory of Istanbul's Waters: "Resounding Io"
Arter invites viewers to explore the image that a sound “makes” and the sound that an image “creates”.
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
Resounding Io, featuring a multi-screen and multi-channel installation commissioned by Arter, welcomes visitors thanks to the funding provided by Grundig for the exhibition production and the acquisition of the work for the Arter Collection.
Born in Cleveland in 1947 and based in San Francisco, Bill Fontana began his career as a composer and, over more than forty years, his oeuvre has unearthed the delicacies of the hidden music surrounding us in our daily lives, drawing our attention to it in striking ways. According to Bill Fontana, the act of listening is a way of making music.
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
Curated by Melih Fereli as the fifth edition of Arter’s “Sound Art Projects” series, the exhibition Resounding Io constitutes the artist’s first solo exhibition in Turkey and a unique addition to his series Acoustical Visions.
«As my use of video has increased in recent years I have called many of these works Acoustical Visions. I started using this term before I started using video. It began as a concept for site-specific sound sculptures that were in situations where there was a view that was being listened to. The early versions of this concept were called Acoustic Views.» (Bill Fontana)
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
Fontana’s installations, which highlight the idea that the act of listening is a way of making music, use sound as a “sculptural” medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual and architectural settings.
Resounding Io is based on research surveys conducted by Fontana in Istanbul, whereby the artist made video and sound recordings, some underwater, at numerous locations along the Bosphorus, as well as in two Byzantine cisterns, namely the Theodosius Cistern and the Basilica Cistern.
Upon entering the space, visitors are drawn to a very large wall-screen featuring the ambisonic recordings the artist made in the Theodosius Cistern, with sound being reproduced by way of a matrix of eight speakers near the wall.
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
The relocating of the sound data Fontana collected in Istanbul with a portable recording studio – consisting of an 8-channel digital recorder, acoustic microphones, hydrophones and accelerometers – was achieved by way of playing them via loudspeakers in the Basilica Cistern at night, which generated an incredible response from the huge void/vaults of the structure, a variety of reverberation, which in turn were recorded as the final composition through a method called “re/sounding”.
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
«Fontana’s ambition was to find a way of connecting the Bosphorus to an architectural structure that was significant for the livelihood of the city, even if to a lesser extent than the Bosphorus itself. It was clear that ‘water’ was the obvious element to consider; the striking presence of the many cisterns of varying sizes indicates their significance for the city’s livelihood throughout history in respect of water supply. […]»
«[…] For Fontana too, water is ‘the essence of life’ and ‘the memory of nature’; although the Bosphorus and the two cisterns selected for the project never had a physical connection, it is water that has always constituted their heart and soul; a fact which Fontana takes to a different level by connecting them through sound and water, ‘an endlessly fascinating material to explore for sound and for image’, which also ‘makes the presentation of time possible’. […]»
«[…] Water lures us into a world of pleasure whilst also posing potential risks, and one tends to forget water’s bipolarity, manifesting itself in being at the same time nurturing and destructive. […]» (Melih Fereli)
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
The work is titled in reference to the mythological story of Io, who gave her name to the Bosphorus. Io, in Greek mythology, was regarded as the first priestess of Hera, the wife of Zeus.
Zeus fell in love with Io and, to protect her from the wrath of Hera, changed her into a white heifer.
Hera then sent a gadfly to torment Io, who therefore wandered all over the earth, crossed the Ionian Sea trying to flee from the gadfly, and swam the strait that was thereafter known as the Bosphorus (literally meaning Ox-Ford).
Taking full advantage of the advanced technical features of Arter’s performance space Karbon, Resounding Io creates a sensual and dynamic world, where visitors are invited to participate in an immersive experience, which will transform their perception of time and space through audio-visual compositions based on a combination of recordings from the Bosphorus and the Theodosius Cistern.
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
Additional screens are also positioned at such an angle that the imagery and the variety of sounds within the space mimicking an “exploded cube” – perfectly adapted to the architecture and acoustics of Karbon – reflect the artist’s ambition to mix sources from different locations by connecting them through water, an endlessly fascinating material to explore for both sound and image.
Resounding Io (from the series Acoustical Visions)Arter
«[…] I find that the extraordinary combination of visuals and sounds in this beautiful tribute to the union of the deeply mysterious “memory” of the Bosphorus with the rich response from the two Byzantine cisterns recalls the lament of Io as she crossed the waters that carried her beyond the threshold of condemnation in being restored to human form.» (Melih Fereli)
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