Eon
Eon er den største inndelingen i geologisk tid, og musikken jeg har skrevet springer ut av min barnlige fascinasjon for bergarter og det massive og sublime ved fjell, stein og mineraler. Jeg vil det skal kile i ørene som det kiler i hjernen når jeg tenker på knitrende edelsten grus og de seige syklusene som buldrer i undergrunnen mens jeg drikker morgenkaffen min.
Musicians:
Signe Emmeluth - alto saxophone, flute, electronics
Karl Bjorå - guitar
Joel Ring - cello
Martin Langlie - drums, electronics
Karoline Wallace - vocals, electronics
“Skjørt og muskuløst til samme tid, bærende på særpreg. Det er dette som er Karoline-stilen, i mine ører. Utforskende og dypt menneskelig.” - Arild R. Andersen, jazzinorge
Translation of the vinyl’s inner sleeve
In this project, I am inspired by deep time—geological time.
An eon is the longest unit of time in the geological timescale. Earth’s history is divided into four eons. These can be subdivided into eras, which in turn can be divided into one or more periods, then epochs and ages.
Tycho is a mountain within a crater on the Moon, known for its bright ray system that makes it easily visible from Earth. It was formed around 100 million years ago and is named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Tycho Brahe was born a twin, but his brother was stillborn. He was the only one of twelve siblings who was sent away to be raised by his uncle. King Frederick II gifted him an entire island, where he had a castle built—Uraniborg—as well as the observatory Stjerneborg. Tycho was not well liked, and in a duel in 1566 he lost his nose, afterwards wearing a nose made of silver.
Ringing rocks (klokkesteiner) are stone blocks that chime when struck. We do not know why some stones ring while most others do not. There are many legends and theories about them, such as that they contain trapped girls, elves, and other beings, or that they were gateways to the underworld. Visit www.klokkesteiner.no to find your nearest rock to strike, as we did.
When my family and I moved back to Norway from England, my sister Benedikte was five years old and had to leave her friend Heather. The two corresponded using audio cassettes. One of the tapes was titled To Benedikte from Heather.
Stretch yourself far out—(Vid deg helt ut) “In the book The Structure of the Earth from 1282, the monk Ristoro d’Arezzo claimed that mountains were pulled up from the Earth’s crust by the attraction of the stars. (…) The highest mountains were raised by the largest stars, while the smaller mountains and ridges could thank the smaller stars for their existence. (…) The best part of the theory, however, was that the topography of the Earth’s mountains formed an exact imprint of the starry sky. Peaks and valleys had their counterparts in the heavens.” (Svensen, 2011, p. 22)
The Atlas Mountains in North Africa were, in Greek mythology, seen as the place where the giant Atlas was punished and exiled by Zeus. According to the story, Perseus showed him the head of Medusa, which turned Atlas to stone. His arms and shoulders became the long ridges of the mountain range, while his head became the highest peak.
In the Stone Garden at the Natural History Museum lies a beautiful gneiss. Like other metamorphic rocks, it was formed by being pushed beneath the Earth’s crust. Next to the stone you can read: “The heat and high pressure made it soft as caramel, kneading and bending the layers of the rock into folds.”
This image of the rock cycle—a continuous process in which rocks change and transform between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic forms—is a beautiful reminder that even the most stable and immovable things we can imagine, stone and mountains, also move and are reshaped over deep time.
Live for Today was composed and recorded in 1982 by my father, Petter Wallace, while he was living and studying in San Diego. In the final track of Eon, my father’s beautiful song lies like a fossil within a mass of rock, slowly seeping to the surface.
At the core of Monica Flakk’s artistic practice is stone. Her works are created with inspiration from geological formations, phenomena, and time. “I use photography as a tool to reveal hidden layers of information and aspects of the stones. I think about the immense span of time between the stone and the human: because the stone contains a time without a defined endpoint?”