Poet Matthea Harvey and sound artist Jusin Bennet are the creators of Telettrofono, a “soundwalk” sponsored by stillspotting nyc, a two-year multidisciplinary project that takes the Guggenheim’s Architecture and Urban Studies programming out into the city’s five boroughs..

It opens this weekend and will be open through August 5, 2012.

Telettrofono is a site-specific artwork that, from the sounds of it, is worth a trip to Staten Island. And what could be better than a brief voyage on the Staten Island Ferry?

Here’s what you do: Take the ferry to S.I.; then go to kiosk where you will get a special iPod and take a 90-minute soundwalk along the shore and into the St. George neighborhood.

Telettrofono is about Antonio Meucci, the inventor of the telephone decades before Bell, and his mermaid wife, Esterre. Meucci invented a marine telephone so that divers could speak to ship captains, flame-retardant paint (which he advised using on your underwear),  and improved effervescent drinks, among other things.

For Telettrofono, Bennett and Harvey meld ambient sounds from the borough with invented noises such as pianos of stone and glass, or a bone-xylophone, with a poetic script for an audio walking tour that weaves Meucci’s tragic true-to-life story together with fantastical elements.

Bennett and Harvey envision Meucci’s wife, Esterre – a mermaid who leaves the water for land because of her love for the sounds above ground.

The walk in search of this storied couple meanders along the waterfront, past salt mounds and industrial sites, through historic residential neighborhoods and into places of discovery. The route is designed as a spiral to lead visitors out from the coast into the land, while the recorded story transports listeners out from the external urban environment into a state of introspection.

Participants will listen to the narrative soundscape through an imagined present-day telettrofono, a phone that is “smart” in the sense that it can enable listening under and across the water, dialing into fairytale and fact, mermaid choruses, and real and invented patent applications.

The Telettrofono will guide the listener through changing perspectives on sound and place within the tale of the Meuccis from Florence and Havana, as well as the stories, sights, and silences distinct to Staten Island.

If you would like to know more about the soundwalk, go here for information, tickets and an audio preview.

http://stillspotting.guggenheim.org/visit/staten-island/

Says Mattea, who is a wonderful poet: “I promise it’ll be a unique and wild experience (I don’t want to give away all the surprises…).”