Mnemonic Waters, 2022

Jenn E Norton

Mnemonic Waters will be featured at Platforms Project Art Fair, an international gathering of not-for-profit art organizations, and remains available in Athens to anyone at any time! The project is presented by the Artist Residency Program at The School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, and curated by Julie René de Cotret.

Mnemonic Waters is a site-specific audio piece by Jenn E Norton that uses geolocation to sonically trace the ancient river of Ilissos, which lies beneath the city of Athens. Drawing upon two mythical rivers of the underworld, Hades, The River of Unmindfulness, known as Lethe, where the dead drink from its waters to forget their previous lives before rebirth, and The River Mnemosyne, which restores memory and spares the soul from transmigration. 

The underground river, River Ilissos, was buried beneath post-WWII Athens, in an effort to modernize the city. Running in a tunnel under Vasileos Konstantinou and Kallirois Avenues, emerging briefly behind the Temple of Olympia Zeus. The ancient banks of River Ilisos figured in Plato’s writing, as the site where Socrates and the Cynics discussed their philosophies. 

Using GPS in an application called Echoes, the buried river is traced, and the work can be accessed by anyone at a specific physical location, found with Google Maps.

To hear the Mnemonic Waters [1]