Audio is the new video. 10 palpable reasons why you should experience 'Oh that sea'

The living proof can be seen just before it knocks you off your socks, or lands under a bus before your eyes: people with headphones on in traffic are not in the same bike lane as where you are riding. Not even in the same universe. Even if their eyes are open.

We don't realise ourselves how effective sound is in creating an illusion. A game with poor graphics but good sound is more addictive than a game with perfect visuals but cracking audio. Just try.

Those who do not have an Xbox at hand for a while now have the opportunity to experience the effect in Scheveningen. Between the harbour, Westduin Park and the cheerful working-class district of Duindorp is beach pavilion La Cantina. And there you can start an audio walk that transports you from Duindorp to the Mediterranean in a few steps. Thanks to perfect sound.

Ten other things help.

1: Rocking benches

On a dune top overlooking a sand drift and the sea beyond, there are huge rocking benches. The thundering wind from the sea makes rocking yourself unnecessary. The lonely struggle of a fate-stricken sea hero on your ears does the rest. You are there. You are him.

2: Bad weather

In the Odyssey, from which 'Oh that sea' features a few excerpts, the sea is no friend of the main character Odysseus. It is regularly about howling storms, inky black skies and house-high grey waves. That image suits the North Sea in the coldest August for a century much better than the ever-blue Mediterranean, where the Odyssey was set 3,000 years ago.

3: NCRV

In 1994, Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen (then just out of school) made a radio play series for NCRV of the oldest literary work, a collection of orally transmitted stories written down by Homer about a king's legendary journey back to his home, thanks to the capriciousness of the gods stretched over 10 wild years. Thanks to a fresh translation by Imme Dros, the 30-part radio play became an unlikely hit in the Netherlands

4: The North Sea

Creator Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen grew up in Scheveningen, but had nothing to do with the North Sea. Until she saw the Mediterranean Sea a few years back in Greece (or was it in Brittany and saw the Atlantic Ocean?), thought back to her Odyssey project from 1994, and suddenly saw the penny drop in the grey-black North Sea. Homeric stories do tend to take a diversion or two.

5: The Greek gods

There are those who still believe in it, and who can blame them. For the classical Greeks, the gods (One for every subject. Or two) as capricious as the world around them. A bickering bunch of self-centred vanity-mongers, who regarded humanity as toys and handed out rather arbitrary punishments because one mortal just sacrificed a juicier piece of lamb than another. Contrast that with the all-powerful, all-knowing loners of today's world religions. Never understood why an all-powerful supreme being needed protection from earthly believers. No. Then supreme god Zeus. That was just a huge jerk with loose hands, an oversized libido and an irresistible sense of humour. Explains everything, really.

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6: Scheveningen

A lot is happening in Scheveningen. A new theatre has just been built with the most beautiful artist's foyer in the world (sea view!) and there is that beach that is actually in Greece. Just cycle there sometime. Plenty of room.

7: Ton Lutz

He is now a few years dead, but what a voice the man had, and what a good storyteller he was. Go listen. Old-fashioned? Yes, maybe, but sometimes that's just really nice too.

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8: The Homeric equation

Just as a painting by Rembrandt, e.g. The Night Watch, in which the light seems to emerge, as it were, from the paint itself, and the girl in the picture breaks through the rigidity of the group portrait with playfulness, relates to a canvas by Bob Ross, in which every detail can be predictably applied by the right materials to be purchased through his trade, so the Homeric comparison relates to everyday imagery. 'Oh, that sea' is full of it. Sometimes a little too much.

9: Duindorp

It is one of those working-class neighbourhoods in The Hague that has again been less positive in the news lately. I met only friendly people. And they are renovating things quite nicely. But that could also have been down to my Greek state of mind. Thanks to that fantastic sound.

10: The Odyssey.

Wonderful story. Must be heard once in a lifetime. Now is the best chance.

Oh That Sea is yet to be experienced. More info here.