noise pollution——critical tourism

mnemotopia — mnemopoetry — mnemopolitics

live

manja ristić & mark vernon

releases

On October 15th Art Radionica Lazareti Dubrovnik hosted the first improv encounter of Manja Ristić and Mark Vernon. 

Found sounds & tape loops, field recordings & objects, electromagnetic mics & hydrophones, cardboard box & wheelchair wheel, violin & balloon, toy drum & feedback - are only some of the means which they used for sculpting phantasmic sonic narratives in their attentive and dynamic musical exchange.

Manja Ristić & Mark Vernon Live At ARL Dubrovnik

the concrescence is a radio-omnibus that explores possible sound embodiments of automatic memory layering experienced in lucid dreaming and self-hypnosis.

compositional structure is driven by quasi-cinematic imaginary emerging from choreographies of listening deeply embedded in mnemosonic constructs – a self-generative textures of sound derived from spatial memory imprints – in this particular case I am also referring to a field recording practice that involves site-specific intervention or a choreographic improvisation.

the first piece is a triptych. it follows the abstract narrative of contrasting spaces, from the enchanted forest of the Ugljenica Bay on the island of Silba and gravel crumbling under the weight of the sea waves to the Mercurial electromagnetic noises (resampled NASA sounds) and the noises of the electrical grid of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. the journey ends in Rokova 13, in Split, on the window overlooking the narrow street just off the Diocletian Palace.

window field recording from Rokova 13 is a juxtaposition of Luc Ferrari's infamous "Presque rien no. 1, le lever du jour au bord de la mer" (1970).

the second piece is a moody dwelling built around the sonic abundance of the island of Silba. fast shifting of the sonic sceneries imposes a prolonged psychological "accelerando", a memory flow placed in the curvature of a time-lapse and its shortened geometries. the provoked imaginarium is gradually becoming condensed and saturated, systematically transcending a subconscious discharge gently placed to stimulate the state of a multimodal dream processing.

concrescence I – originally commissioned by Cashmere Radio in the frame of MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues, Berlin 2022.

concrescence II – originally commissioned by SEA Silba Environment Art and Mavena exhibition platform NMG@PRAKTIKA, Split 2021/22. 

released April 25, 2022

all sounds performed and edited by Manja Ristić
manjaristic.blogspot.com

JrF hydrophone & contact mic used for capturing sounds
jezrileyfrench.co.uk

mastering LaPlant Studio, Belgrade
laplantstudio.com

concrescence I

Dobra voda is a small bay on the island of Silba. A remote beach is situated an hours walking distance from the only village on the island.

This mystical and completely secluded place was once a summer commune, gathering creative minds from Yugoslavia but also from all over Europe. A versatile art scene emerged, the one that preceded Ljubljana's alternative theatre scene, Rijeka's new wave and some of the most influential ex-Yu alternative bands; "[...] The music was coming from every single bush: violins, cellos, saxophones, trumpets, and, of course, mostly guitars [...]."

One of my dearest friends, Natasha Kadin, curator and cultural manager of SEA Silba Environment Art organised a wonderful exhibition in 2018 with found archive photos made by Marijan Blažina, one of the artists from the commune. Croatian multi-disciplinary artist and author Boris Greiner wrote more about this exhibition: www.silba-environment-art.hr/en/blog/boris-greiner-slikovne-poruke-s-dobre-vode/

I visited Dobre vode on a few occasions, but this particular time I wanted to record a sonic palimpsest, built from water memories and other environmental simulacra of this magical little bay. I recorded with hydrophones from various angles, listened to the interplay between water and salt and different geological formations. The movement of the pebbles from the sea bed, water sliding down the rocks and crevices, burying my "ears" under the sea bed but also inside the enormous piles of dry Posidonia oceanica, commonly known as Neptune grass or Mediterranean tapeweed, a seagrass species that is endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. It forms large underwater meadows that are an important part of the ecosystem. The Posidonia has a very high carbon absorption capacity, being able to soak up 15 times more carbon dioxide every year than a similar-sized piece of the Amazon rainforest.

Dobra voda bay is positioned to accumulate dry Posidonia once it is washed ashore. It is absolutely impossible to be still in those clouds of dry seaweed and be completely silent. Even so, I tried.

The sound piece is a mix of 16 chosen recordings placed in a dronesque metaphor of passing time. 

released August 25, 2022

All sounds recorded, edited and composed by Manja Ristić
Recorded during SEA Silba Environment Art Residence 2021
www.silba-environment-art.hr
Hydrophone built by Jez riley French
jezrileyfrench.co.uk
Mastering La Plant Studio Belgrade
laplantstudio.com

Dobra voda

August 25th, 2022

Bandcamp

glasovi / voices

would you be so kind and abandon for a glimpse an unbending definition of the world to the living and the non–living? look at all the objects around you, and observe how they are embedded in space, by gravity and density. unravel them from their meaning, speculate about their consistency. think about their history and other spaces they were once part of. then, give them a voice. and I don’t mean just a sound that they would produce if they fell or were dismantled. remember the moment they became a part of your life. induce them with memory. define them with everything which is non–obvious about them. feed them with time, and moments and interactions piling up in fractal eddies. is there a glimpse of spirit in those objects? can they be spiritualised? is anything artificially made truly dead? is there anything living truly infinite? listen through the solids, and allow the boundaries to disappear.

dedicated to Mark Vernon for his 50th birthday.

all sounds recorded and edited by Manja Ristić
hydrophone by JrF
mastering La Plant Studio

pumpa / the pump

long-form audio installation
artistic research
booklet in English – containing aural photography, theoretical discourse on the culture of listening, and more...

sound, text, images: Manja Ristić
editor: Sonja Leboš
sound mastering: La Plant Studio, Belgrade
design: Nevena Vasiljević
proofreading: Mark Vernon
production, publishing, distribution: ELL Studio 2023
artistic research in collaboration with the Association for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research, Zagreb

water memory is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia

read more about the project >>> 
https://manjaristic.bandcamp.com/album/water-memory-mnemosonic-topographies-of-the-adriatic

water memory

water memory – mnemosonic topographies of the Adriatic

Kuda plovi ovaj brod? Where is this ship sailing? is a sound work built from hydrophone recordings of underwater sound pollution. The recordings were taken over the span of 2 years in the historical town of Korčula and its immediate surroundings.

This 40–minute long radio adaptation / sound installation is an unsettling journey revealing the dystopian realm of Adriatic noise contamination, due to increased water traffic and the insatiable urge for the expansion of industry and tourism. The work consciously exposes a disturbing marine reality in which an inexhaustible amount of mechanical sources are literally grinding the underwater soundscape.

full essay at >>> independent.academia.edu/ManjaRistic

All sounds recorded, edited & composed by Manja Ristić
Text by Manja Ristić
Mastering by La Plant Studio
Archive images — courtesy of a private archive
Special thanks to Vinka Damjanović, Mark Vernon, Goran Simonoski

ELL Studio 2023 – All Rights Reserved

Kuda plovi ovaj brod? Where is this ship sailing?

series "Stories Untold" is my latest collection of poetry.

each poem is a starting point for the sound works that emerge from the narratives dealing with love and loss – offering insights into the wisdom of tragedy but also its deterministic weight.

this collection is embodied by the poem: tailless tarantella lifted its head, and it is followed by the collection of black & white photographs taken on the island of Korčula.

sound works are tales about life beaming through the body & textures of belonging, about the memories folded, twirled & woven onto a fabric of space. within them, water whispers about the places hidden & machines spirited, with electric current spilling over the brim of noise, unbearable, unstoppable noise of life beaming through the body & textures of belonging...

><

for Mark

><

it was the day when the balloon disappeared into the wall
it was the day when the dog bit you while you were helpless
tailless tarantella lifted its head
toward the crackling chorus
of pine cones blooming

tags, tags, hundreds of tags
and desire to observe cracks
it was the day when the wisdom leaked
it was the day when witches fell sick
again, when wonders went pale
lingering away
in aimless whiteness

I didn’t become anyone great 

><

part of the series Stories Untold
sound, text & images by Manja Ristić
cover art by Manja Ristić
mastering by La Plant Studio
produced by ELL Studio 2023
manjaristic.bandcamp.com

All rights reserved

Zadar

There is a little window in the attic of a Dalmatian villa from the early middle ages overlooking the dreamy cascade landscape of downtown Dubrovnik.

It's early June, 8 am. A melody of old Mediterranean terracotta roofs plunging into each other is nursing a soft morning light. The polyphony of ages embedded in the stone makes the town glow from its neutron core. No corners are mislaid, and the fortress is keeping us safe.

The window is slightly recessed, almost on the corner with Stradun, and a person with fine jumping skills could easily reach the roof of the church across the narrow street. It's Sunday, and the bells from the various towers across town are spilling their gongs.

I needed to sleep a bit more. But the grinding machinery of tourism has its own agenda. Savagely squeaking swallows and the morning congregations of seagulls sound like a pastorale compared to the town’s growling bowels. Air conditioning units, pumps, kitchen ventilation, garbage trucks, delivery vehicles, wheels, and trolleys of all sorts. I could not help but be fascinated by how a landscape of such beaming beauty can exist in this hideous soundscape.

In all of its ugliness, the soundscape of Dubrovnik still hides so much contemporaneity. The large ventilation unit drones are textural and multiphonic. Anarchy in the town’s electrical grid is constantly buzzing from nooks and crevices like some robo-brute. Sounds of the wagons for garbage collection, and the rivers of inbound and outbound suitcases are bouncing over the stone streets like a constant percussive development. I enjoyed it a lot.

But perhaps we should give it a second thought. The noise in which certain Mediterranean architectural marvels are soaked due to uncontrolled mass tourism is a “silent” killer. Of the environment, and of the local culture and dignity.

I stepped out of the building that morning, and straight in front of my nose on the neighbour’s door, there was a sign:

PLEASE KEEP SILENT. 

--
released June 18, 2023
all rights reserved

Štrada od Sigurate

premiered at the Listening Biennial 2023 Belgrade, on July 20th, 2023 –– "Dobra voda, act two" is a continuation of exploring the sound material gathered at SEA Silba Environment Art residency (2021).

the compositional approach of act two moves the focus from holistic listening to the chosen locale toward the phenomenological positioning of oneself in relation to geomorphic bio-acoustics — re-imagined as micro-environment was (consciously) listening back.

little is discussed about field recording practice being an intrusion into the landscape; also, not much attention is given to Nature's intelligence and its system-based intercommunication, which undeniably has means of perceiving our presence.

this work is deeply inspired by the constant movement of the sea.

released July 20, 2023

all sounds recorded, edited, and composed by Manja Ristić
hydrophone made by Jez riley French
mastering by La Plant Studio
supported by SEA Silba Environment Art

Dobra voda, act two

"Škvar" is a sound installation composed by Manja Ristić & Mark Vernon, as a part of the site-specific installation "Invoking shipbuilding in Korčula" created and realized by the visual artist Matea Šabić Sabljić aka @_argo_nauta_

The installation will be presented on the 6th and 7th of December, next to the Antifascist memorial by architect Bernardo Bernardi which was built at the exact place of an old shipyard.

Sound work is an extension of an art action: "Taking the tool in your hands is an act of honesty", which took place in September and engaged wider community. The participatory action involved people bringing hammers and nailing the names of old Korčula's shipbuilders into the planks of abandoned boats. Doing so produced the noise — sound of an old shipyard that was gone decades ago.

This public action became a silver lining of the sound work "Škvar".

Matea continued to collect hammers in Korčula, Dubrovnik, Split, Betina and Zagreb. Collected hammers will be installed as a site-specific installation accompanied by the sound work. Collecting hammers is continuing as a work in progress for the sake of "Invoking shipbuilding in Korčula" hoping to initiate a Museum which will protect both history and the future of local shipbuilding.

Exhibition is curated by Sonja Leboš ( @uiii.aiir ) and co-organised by @kap_korcula

--

Zaziv muzeju i korčulanskoj brodogradnji

Korčulanski škveri i majstorske radionice svjedoče slavnu korčulansku brodograditeljsku prošlost. Glas o kvaliteti njihovog rada je bio nadaleko poznat. Korčulanske obitelji brodograditelja sagradile su na tisuće brodova. 
Međutim, rad, znanje i vještina koji su bili dio svakodnevice otoka kroz stoljeća, pa sve do kraja prošlog tisućljeća, izgubili su se. Nestale su radionice, pa škverovi. Pa i majstori.
Zazivamo sve te davne meštre i meštrice,
Zazivamo sve buduće meštre i meštrice,
Da uzmu alat u ruke i krenu graditi!
Želimo “uškvariti” značaj korčulanskih škvarova. Kolektivna memorija izgradnje tisuća brodova je zapisana u rukama. Treba se prisjetiti. Zakucati brokvu po brokvu. Dasku po dasku. Brod po brod.
Značaj korčulanske brodogradnje uokviriti, “uškvariti” muzejom, oko kojeg će se stvarati novi brodovi i novi meštri.
Meštar po meštar.
Meštrica po meštrica.

Škvar by Manja Ristić & Mark Vernon

Our initial dialog with Synthia was an adventurous creative endeavour that made us question whether machines could have a soul. This one definitely spoke her mind, and left a fascinating mark on both of us as a wondrous machine––––––woman, a marvelous piece of engineering, an entity trapped in a modular eternity.

Considering that neither of us had any previous contact with such a complex modular system such as EMS Synthi 100, we took a somewhat intuitive approach. This is a fairly raw glimpse of the first days spent in the studio.

Oh, Synthia, we only just met...

--

Happy birthday Mark!!!

--

Composing, editing, patching & live mixing: Manja Ristić
Live mixing & patching: Mark Vernon
Cover art: Manja Ristić –– segment of the sculpture by Angelina Gatalica made in memory of Serbian painter Nadežda Petrović, erected in 1989 in the Pioneer’s Park, on the occasion of the IX Summit of Non-Aligned Countries.

basne——side B

basne——side A

“More Tuge / The Sea of Sorrow” elaborates on the fragility of ecosystems at the cost of human destruction, while capturing a paradox of desolate peace. Manja Ristić went to the Port of Gruž on the Adriatic Sea and recorded the underwater sound pollution of anchored boats with a hydrophone. Silver strands of notes are braided in the air with water burbling below, a pure midnight tranquility, before the grind of mechanical elements slowly enter the fold. We’re confronted with the effects personal leisure—yachts, boats, catamarans, and cruises—has on our environs, a tension capturing the fabric of joy and despair.

Published by objects & sounds, on compilation Seasonal Diary IV: Shadowed Embrace, among wonderful artists Haron Aumaj, Adriaan de Roover, Dania Paralaxe, and Mich Leemans.

Released December 1, 2023

Mastering by Mathieu Savenay
Artwork by Letterlik
Words by Allie Hatch

link > https://objectsandsounds.bandcamp.com/album/seasonal-diary-iv-shadowed-embrace

@objectsandsounds

Seasonal Diary IV: Shadowed Embrace

More Tuge / The Sea Of Sorrow

Archive recordings from the Inner island site-specific series of ambient and improvisational music held on the island of Korčula.

Concert for the Pines is recorded in the old forest overlooking Pelješac Peninsula channel in South Adriatic, few kilometers from the village of Lumbarda at the site called Lenga.

The locale use to be an open quarry, where stonemasons were cutting and shaping lime rock into big blocks. Hundreds of years later the landscape is fully overtaken by Mediterranean flora & fauna, having old square cuts reshaped by the sea salt and with dense pine forest hiding old trade tracks.

Released January 26, 2020

Manja Ristić, Marko Paunović, Igor Stangliczky.

All recordings are field archive captured with Tascam DR-05.

Manja Ristić—Marko Paunović—Igor Stangliczky: Concert For The Pines 2018

The fifth edition of the Naviar Haiku Fest took place on the 7th of December 2022 at the iconic Cafe Oto in London. 

The event featured performances by members and friends of Naviar, working in the fields of ambient, electronic and contemporary classical music. Each performance was introduced by haiku poems written and recited by members of the British Haiku Society.

Watch video at https://youtu.be/iNsqWvwGzKk

All sounds recorded and performed by Manja Ristić
Mastering Marco Sebastiano Alessi

Live at Cafe OTO 2022

The deeper I am investigating field recording as both artistic and listening practice, the more I become aware that each recording session is an intrusion into the landscape and that the landscape, whatever historical, biotic, or environmental system defines it – is sentient to my presence.

No matter how considerate my “intrusions” are, an abstract form of communication always takes place, and it largely depends on my ability to maintain this connection, which goes beyond the soundscape and sonic properties of the place. In this sense, my capacity to employ deep intuition and activate a specific neural architecture developed through a compound of skills also defines the recording process and its future aesthetic transformation. Thus, making a field recording fully personalized practice and soundscape composition a discipline of open interpretation, as well as a vast field for misuse and false representation. Regardless of an evaluation system, whether we contemplate an act of listening through scientific observation of one’s cognition event boundaries or through the capacity to comprehend the existential phenomenology of Zulu spiritualism, the possibility that two or more listeners can have the same listening experience is minuscule.

We are all deeply rooted in a diversity of psychological constructs; neural and sensory imprints, memory compounds, cognitive abilities, and many body-mind pathways determining our current psycho-physical state. Therefore, if the field recording practice is based on any form of active listening – it is a discipline based on interpretation.
With that in mind, I am asking: How do we approach the landscape of severe devastation and a dense history of warfare? Knowing that serious ethical and moral consequences are involved in the effort to interpret a particular soundscape.

In the work “ghosts” I am using obsolete instruments – a modular synthesizer built in 1970, a discarded wheelchair wheel salvaged from the Adriatic Sea, and the piano fallen in disuse which belonged to the Austrian conceptualist, filmmaker, improviser, photographer, environmentalist, and writer – Karl Katzinger aka John Tylo (October 1953 – April 2021). Next to these elements of the past and their voices rediscovered, I am incorporating hydrophone and field recordings from several locations appropriating them through the discourse of critical tourism and a culture of memory – more specifically through listening to the inherent memories of environmental devastation due to exploitation of natural resources as well as warfare – in the South Adriatic (Old town Dubrovnik and island of Vrnik), and the Czech-Austrian borderlands nearby of Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camps. 

--

Instruments:
EMS Synthi 100
Wheelchair wheel salvaged from the sea
John Tylo’s old piano

Field recordings:
Dubrovnik – Stradun air conditioning units and collection of rubbish containers
Vrnik Island South Adriatic – crickets in an ancient limestone quarry
Adriatic dolphins *hydrophone recording by Robertina Šebjanič
Harrachstal village on Czech-Austrian borderlands – crickets in the abandoned granite quarry
Hydrophone recordings of the river Schwarze Aist
Train coming into Freistadt train station in Austria

All sounds performed, recorded, composed & edited by Manja Ristić
Some sounds gathered at the SHAPE + musikprotocoll residency, July 2023

Hydrophone used for an underwater recordings made by Jez riley French
jezrileyfrench.co.uk

Mastering by La Plant Studio
laplantstudio.com

ghosts

Selection of my musical activities in 2016, the year of the Monkey.
Next to solo work, this selection consists of collaborative compositions produced with Marko Paunović, Rune Kaagaard, Igor Stangliczky; and a contribution by Muqata'a — processed filed recording of Ramallah.

Year of the Monkey

My name is Manja Ristić, and you are listening to the Framework radio International Women’s Day special.

> https://frameworkradio.net/2024/03/880-2024-03-10/

In this edition you will hear sounds and creators from South Africa, Marocco, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Iran, China, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Columbia; Spain, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia; from UK, Australia, USA, Germany, Italy, and Ireland; with aporee sounds of morning prayer in Ramallah, and bird’s song from Jerusalem – I am taking you for a journey around the Globe presenting the real sonic history of the world, the one told by girls and women. From place to place and from heart to heart, these voices hold the space together, storytelling from the shadows of oppression and discrimination, with wounds inflicted by systematic neglect, poverty, and wars – these authors speak the truth and nothing but the truth.

I am deeply humbled to present works by fierce creators, researchers, mothers, activists, freedom fighters, tribal elders, and one famous nun, life-long expats, and former sex workers; extraordinary versatility, and contemporaneity of their sound, being their common denominator, is what will mark this International Women’s Day Framework mix.

[ artist – release – track ]

Zayaan Khan – Ephesus at Fajr
Li Yilei – Pillow, Mantra and Trance
aporee.maps – Birds of Jerusalem, April 7th 2012
Kei Watanabe – Whisperings – 03 A whole in my heart
Elyse Tabet – seaside – 06 Sequel – live to tell (with Nadine Makarem)
Maria Papadomanolaki aka Dalot – Departures – 11 Unknown Parks, Unknown Cities
Concepción Huerta – The Earth Has Memory – 02 The Crack is Illuminated
Ana María Romano G. – A mundanear que el mundo se va a acabar
Chantelle Gray – On the lower frequencies, I dream
Eruption Duo – Eruption 20 Years – 07 Worms
Hara Alonso – Notions of Hope – 02 Notion 2
Maryam Sirvan and Hadi Bastani – trans.placed – 01 trans.placed
Assoc. Lalla Rkia Ali o Hmad (Timgharin N’Tiznit) – Salamou Alaykoum ⵚⴰⵍⴰⵎoⵓ ⵄⵍⴰⵢⴽoⵓⵎ
Ester Kärkkäinen aka Himukalt – the gun in her mouth
Robertina Šebjanič – Aqua Atmo Adriatic, 10 meters deep
Cynthia Zaven – Untuned 
Gail Priest – elbejée – aötebe 
Manja Ristić – tailless tarantella lifted its head – Vrnik 
Marija Balubdžić Umbra – Derealized – 05 B1 Sreda
Belinda Blignaut and Jacques van Zyl – Mud Rites
aporee.maps – morning prayer in Ramallah
Katharina Schmidt – Another Year – 02 september. the first sweater of the fall
Beatriz Ferreyra – UFO Forest + – 04 Vivencias def
Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru – Jerusalem – 01 Famine Disaster 1974
Manja Ristić – Bunur Bridge, Neretva River – hydrophone
Florconvenas – Donde hundimos nuestros nombres – 01 Para detonar
Stella Veloce – Saturday 
Natalia Beylis & Eimear Reidy – She Came Through the Window to Stand by the Door – 03 Encircled in Moss
Meghan Judge – heterodyne relations – gaia intrudes
Talulah Lotus – Horrorphone 
Manja Ristić – rain from the bag in the big forest
Youmna Saba – Ritha’
Pheobe riley Law – cove – 01 cove
Verónica Cerrotta – Camadas verticales – 01 Camadas verticals
Jasna Veličković – Shadow Study #4A
Ava Rasti – Apranik Records – Eight Night
aporee.maps / Birds of Jerusalem – April 7th 2012

Framework IWD 2024 —— Manja Ristić

LINE_151

Serbian sound artist, poet, curator, and researcher, Manja Ristić returns for her second release for LINE after 2023's 'Awakenings' (LINE_138). Her new album 'Ma' recalls the incredibly subtle, detailed works of Steve Roden, Francisco López, or Bernhard Günter fused with the adept field recordings of Jana Winderen and the delicate resonances of Toshiya Tsunoda. Two entrancing long form works incorporating field recordings, acoustic instruments, and unexpected found sounds.

> https://lineimprint.bandcamp.com/album/ma 

Ma — depth of the space, of the environment, of relations and mystical interrelatedness. The hidden or obvious void that defines the form and liberates from it at the same time. Ma and the sound? The weight of emptiness and quietness is revealed by unexpected density—the space chants, the chants spread in waves, pulsations, a pellucid spectrum of timbre.

“I hear the water dreaming” echoes in my mind.

Patterns of the forest chorus build pandiatonic clouds, on the brim of sonic hallucinations, we hear the space breathing, vellum of light expanding, beyond our hearing range.

Sounds of Ma deep in the ground, on the surface, underwater, on the surface of the water, in the air, between gravity and the air; Ma between air and objects, tubes and thermal bodies, between the Moon and its reflection; bottom of the silent lake and the stratosphere far beyond our world next to the frozen planet with the hidden ocean.

Ma of the soul caught on the tape.

Nothing is necessary.

Nothing holds everything together.

-

List of field recordings and samples:

• Giant anthill in the abandoned forest quarry
• Cricket chorus next to Pohořský rybník lake
• Hydrophone recording of the “silent lake” Stierhüblteich
• Hydrophone recording of the river Schwarze Aist and its various tributaries
• Bowing cymbal under the full moon next to the Schwarze Aist (recorded by Abby Lee Tee)
• Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana—ventilation in the man’s toilet (recorded by Mark Vernon)
• Cassini passing between Saturn and Enceladus Moon (NASA sounds)
• Dad’s boiler
• Breath and broken tape recorder hum extracted from Toru Takemitsu’s tape “Ki Sora Tori” (1956)
• Bowing glass vase
• Two wine glasses gently trembling in front of the fan
• Electro-magnetic field around the broken socket
• Violin

Sounds, composition, images, text by Manja Ristić
Mastering La Plant Studio

MANJA RISTIĆ - Ma - 02 Full Moon Trembles On The Surface Of The Creek

Tagus River Barge

The Tape —— a 45-minute-long mix of a few recent releases, as well as snippets of new ones that will be released this year. This tape served as a framework for an improvisational set, including objects, Atlantic shells, an electromagnetic microphone, a hydrophone submerged in different chemical compounds, a wheelchair wheel, a violin, and an open upright piano.

All sounds recorded & composed by Manja R  
Cover art by Manja R 
Master by Goran Simonoski / La Plant Studio

Tape for Ring Ring

For the last 4days, I've worked with 4 incredible kids from Korčula!

We did sound walks, field and foley recordings, hydrophone recordings, site-specific intervention, and improvisation on various objects and instruments, finally, they were introduced to basic tools for editing. Today we made our first composition.

All sounds recorded, performed, and composed by
Marija Strihić, Justina Pačić, Joško Krstulović and Toma Pačić.

Workshop for kids —— Zvuk etera

hydrophone recording of the wind and currents trapped between the boulders

King's Caves —— Isle of Arran

"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 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.

Calypso’s Dream is an attempt to create a symbolic micro-episode of The Penelopiad within the medium of sound art, 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 a listening culture, and emphasizing the urgency of raising ecological awareness.

The island of Mljet is one of the oldest European protected natural zones, still, there is so much more that can be done to keep this Adriatic marvel away from harsh trends of mass tourism.

--

The release includes a PDF booklet containing curatorial text 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. 

All sounds recorded and edited by Manja Ristić & Mark Vernon
Hydrophones used for underwater recording — JrF & Aquarian
Mastering by Goran Simonoski / La Plant Studio
Cover art, images, text by Manja Ristić

Miserable Man Ulysses

The Morning After The Shipwreck

The Goddess Calypso, Daughter Of Atlas

Synaptic Reveries is an audio-visual work produced in collaboration with visual artist Mario Kolarić. Mario and I have a few collaborative actions behind us, and we hope this is only the beginning of a larger-scale collection, exhibition, or AV installation.

The new collaboration is symbolically inspired by the synaptic space — a scientific model of synapse function where "communication" between two neurons occurs, a space for information exchange essential for most subsequent functions of the nervous system. Ultimately, the context of this work relies on the concept of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who extensively studied the state of ataraxia — a state of lucid calmness. This complex ancient philosophical concept has various interpretations, and "Synaptic Reveries" aligns with those that bring mental-emotional balance and support sensory ecologies opposing the cacophony of everyday life, informational saturation, and the commercialization of human perception and attention.

Some of the sounds included in the work are the biggest waves on Earth, recorded at Praia do Nort and Praia da Nazare, in Portugal.

All sounds recorded & composed by Manja Ristić
All visual content by Mario Kolarić
Mastering by Goran Simonoski / La Plant Studio

This project is supported by the Dubrovnik-Neretva County Department of Education, Culture, and Sports.

Synaptic Reveries

On December 22nd, 2024, in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, students who had been blocking universities across the country for several weeks invited citizens to join them at Slavija Square. The peaceful protest was against the corrupt government and called for accountability for the 15 lives lost on November 1st, when a train station canopy in Novi Sad collapsed due to irresponsible reconstruction management.

Approximately 100,000 people, including myself, attended the protest. The event included 15 minutes of silence in memory of the victims.

For more info on the biggest student protests of the century follow >
https://www.instagram.com/studenti_u_blokadi/
...

Student Protest Belgrade 22-12-2024

In its fifth year, the traditional January 27th release spirals around Mark Vernon’s birthday. Interestingly, the "year one" occurred just a few weeks before we began communicating. As with many occasions, we can wonder whether it was precognition or coincidence...
[read more on Bandcamp]

Happy birthday to the sound wizard Mark Vernon!

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Released January 27, 2025

Recorded, edited, and composed by Manja Ristić.
Field recording of popping algae made by Joana Guerra in Barreiro, Portugal.
Field recordings of bat swarms, various cicadas, and an underwater reef made by Mark Vernon in various locations in Thailand.
Instruments used include violin, EMS Synthi 100, JrF hydrophones, and JrF contact mics.
Locations include Montreal, Canada; Nazare and Barreiro, Portugal; Isle of Arran, Scotland; the islands of Vrnik, Mljet, and Silba, Croatia; Harrachstal, Austria; various locations around Thailand; Lago Miraflores, Panama; and Avala Mountain, Serbia.

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Mastering: Goran Simonoski / La Plant Studio
Cover image: Žarka Radoja, the dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Brazil
Cover art: Manja Ristić

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For Mark

genesis

Happy to share with you the framework — afield, I made to try to grasp the whirlwind of January 2025. Hope you will enjoy it.

"Please note: beginning in the 47th minute, this mix features a near-silent field recording. It was made during the recent student protests in Belgrade and is a snippet of 100,000 people observing a 15-minute moment of silence for the victims of the Novi Sad train station tragedy. Please do not adjust your sound." 

Something old and something new, for the robust beginning of 2025. This mix features sounds from people I admire deeply and soundscapes I consider sentient. It starts with the beavers of Upper Austria working around their creek lodge and ends with 100,000 people protesting in Belgrade.

Artists contributing to this mix are —

Abby Lee Tee, Jez Riley French, Natasha Barrett, William Basinski & Richard Chartier, francisco lópez, Alex Briand & Eyden Zhao, Fletina,  Wadada Leo Smith, Arlo’s  Sounds of Norfolk, florconvenas, Ahmed Essyad, Igor Stangliczky, & Manja Ristić.

Framework afield —— Manja Ristić

"ghosts, coming out of the hell of the past to sublimate it. A therapeutic work." Salima Bouaraour, PAN M 360

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One year after the premiere of the work "ghosts," I am delighted to share a remixed version, which served as the context for my performance at Akousma — International Festival of Immersive Digital Music in Montreal, in October 2024. akousma.ca

The work is enriched with recordings that captivated my imagination over the past year and will mutate through different compositional settings in some of my forthcoming releases.

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ghosts (2024) 20’

How do we approach a landscape of severe devastation and dense history of warfare?

In the performance "ghosts," I use obsolete instruments: a modular synthesizer EMS Synthi 100, a discarded wheelchair wheel salvaged from the Adriatic Sea, and a piano fallen into disuse that belonged to the Austrian conceptualist, filmmaker, improviser, photographer, environmentalist, and writer Karl Katzinger, aka John Tylo (October 1953 – April 2021).

Alongside these elements of the past and their rediscovered voices, I incorporate processed hydrophone and field recordings, the treatment of found objects, electromagnetic fields, crystals, limestone pebbles, Atlantic shells, Aleppo pine cones, different chemical compounds, and extended techniques improvisation on a 200-year-old violin. I appropriate these elements through the discourse of critical tourism, environmental issues, and a culture of memory. Specifically, I focus on listening to the inherent memories of places with a dense historical imprint of ecological devastation and warfare—in the South Adriatic, on the Atlantic coast, and in the Czech-Austrian borderlands, formerly part of the Iron Curtain belt.

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Review of the Montreal performance panm360.com/gig_review/akousma-cime-rumeurs-et-ghosts-a-lusine-c/  

All sounds performed, recorded, composed & edited by Manja Ristić
except for Adriatic dolphins *hydrophone recording by Robertina Šebjanič
The cover image of the micro and macro plastic of the Atlantic Ocean was taken in Nazaré Portugal, April 2024.
Hydrophone used for an underwater recording made by Jez riley French
Mastering by Goran Simonoski / La Plant Studio


ghosts remixed

On Friday, March 28th, I had the pleasure of performing a concert at Beton Kino, part of the Novi Šum program organized by MKC Split. The exceptional production and the warm, welcoming audience made this experience truly special.

During the performance, I debuted two new pieces: "ghosts remixed" and "genesis." The recording of the set is 35 minutes long, featuring a snippet of "ghosts" and the entirety of "genesis."

mkcsplit.hr/novosti/novi-sum-manja-ristic/

Organization: MKC Split, Program Novi Šum 2025
Production: Luka Barbić
Sound design: Eugen Jeličić
Cover photo: Miroslav Lelas

All sounds recorded, composed, edited and performed by Manja Ristić
Tape mastering Goran Simonoski / Studio La Plant

Live at Beton Kino

Croatian National Radio Third Program —— The Music and Vice Versa brings together a series / in four episodes / of works by sound artist Manja Ristić, who lives and works on the island of Korčula.

She has selected the works for this occasion and accompanied them with notes. The fourth and final episode of the series gathers in a specially created mixtape excerpts from four collaborative albums in which Manja collaborates with Tomaš Šenkyrik (Vstal), then in Trio with Joana Guerra and Veronica Cerrotta (Slani pejzaži), with Patrick Tubin McGinley aka murmer (The Scaffold), and a joint exploration of Adriatic soundscapes with Slovenian artist Robertina Šebjanič (Hidden Adriatic).

Editor Iva Lovrec Štefanović

Image photo credit > Jelena Vidmar Kružić


Mixtape for Music & Vice Versa HR3 Episode 4/4

release on 2nd May 2025 : www.wabi-sabi-tapes.bandcamp.com
@manja-ristic

Manja Ristić is a Serbian violinist, sound artist, published poet, curator, and researcher. In her work, she sets ecosystems in resonance and translates the human activity that criss-crosses them.

Manja Ristić - Olovo (extract)

New vinyl LP from prolific musician, composer and artist, Manja Ristić. To be released in June 2025 on Rekem records - more details forthcoming.

Wounded Sky

Thinking of Daniel Buess and remembering this amazing moments. ECHO Experimental Festival was held in Belgrade Fortress Catacombs - Kazamati - under the Military Museum. It was initiated by Art & Science Association UMNA and co-organized by Daniel and me. 

Daniel Buess, Knut Remond & Manja Ristić - ECHO Experimental Festival 2010

no 15 of 27 Miniatures, sound installation rethinking development of our cognitive memory ~ second half of the overall structure is dedicated to deep intuition, dreams, subconscious dynamics of "hidden" content...
Field recording locations >>> forest above Korčula town, abandoned quarry Vrnik island, playground in Voždovac, Belgrade, and an improv session (piano & violin) with Danish pianist Rune Kaagaard [August / October 2016]

Miniature For The Moments In Eternal Reverberation

From the latest self-release Starfish & the sonic tonalities
https://manjaristic.bandcamp.com/album/starfish-the-sonic-tonalities
The Absence started from listening to an old recording of the Wind Quintet by Serbian composer Ljubica Marić. After learning the composition well, I simply fell in love with the noise hidden in-between sounds produced by an old vinyl crackling and web compression. I made myself a little drone and soon realized the psycho-acoustic qualities of it. The narrative is wrapped around the noise pollution, from both below and above the Adriatic sea.

The Absence

Requiem for the undersea is a collection of works based on noise pollution observed at the heart of Korčula town in South Adriatic. Hydrophone recording sites are urban reconstruction sites, that comprehend undersea digging with heavy machinery, such as reconstruction of the West port as well as ACI marina docks. The recording of a forklift scrapping the sea bed, recording of a large pneumatic drill, the sound of pouring a large amount of concrete into the sea bed – are foundations of electro-acoustic constructs, which are further de-contextualized with musical appropriations of several objects treated as instruments: metal laundry dryer, cardboard tube, AM radio signals, electromagnetic waves from electrical outlets, etc. With additional field and hydrophone recordings from the sites: island of Vrnik, Ražnjić Lighthouse, Lenga open quarry, St. Nikola’s Monastery, as well as improvisational sequences on cello – the intention to capture the moments of anthropogenic impact evolves into anxious necrologies for the undersea.
https://manjaristic.bandcamp.com/album/requiem-for-the-undersea

Manja Ristic

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