On today’s show we are revisiting Voice of the Water, a sound sculpture made by Eric Powell. We featured it on Making Waves in July of 2025 when it was very close to being exhibited. The piece uses a rotary telephone for visitors to individually access field recordings of various lakes and rivers near South River, Ontario, Canada. The recordings were made by community members and they were done from both an underwater and above water perspective. Eric also composed soundscape études in response to each recording which can be accessed through a special secret mode. Today on the show we will move around the telephone dial to sample some of the original soundscape recordings and the compositions that Eric made in response to them.

Eric Powell is a sound artist, composer, teacher, and tinkerer. His practice brings together maps, interactive technologies, and field recording to create unique interfaces for exploring both rural and urban sound environments. His work invites users to listen in new ways, challenging them to rethink the role of sound in their daily lives. He is a founding member of several media arts organizations, and has served on the board for both the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology and the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. Eric regularly collaborates with other artists and academics, enabling him to share his work around the world.

Making Waves is a monthly one hour program about radio art and sound art is produced by New Adventures in Sound Art's Artistic Director Darren Copeland in South River, Ontario, Canada. The show features Canadian, US, and international artists creating sound-based media art. It focuses on the techniques, processes, and motivations of the artists it features as well as individuals supporting the field through dissemination and curatorial activities. The show is a snapshot of what is happening in sound-based media art in the here and now from a northern perspective.

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