Stuart Fowkes, creator of Cities and Memory, published a call asking artists to re imagine a curated selection of field recordings from 36 countries around the world to develop brand new compositions on the theme of sustainability, equity and well-being in cities. The project launched at the C40 Summit in Buenos Aires in October 2022. I had the honour to be one of those artists.
I started from the idea that the organisation of the city and its meeting spaces have a profound impact on society.
I then collected real and existing examples of hostile architecture, bringing them to the extreme, the worst possible scenario, where no type of aggregation is allowed if not linked to consumption.
No aggregation without consumption!"The fight against poverty is won by physically eliminating the poor" this the slogan of the time of terror framed, through a narrative device, in the past, a time as different as possible from a much more harmonious and inclusive present.
Check out all tracks included in the album and check also the C40 Summit: Global & Smart Cities Talk that brought together the mayors of global and regional cities, business leaders, philanthropists, campaigners, youth leaders, scientists and residents, to share bold ideas, showcase innovative solutions and stand together to create a sustainable, prosperous and equitable future.
A woman writes a message during her daily tram commute to work. Seemingly insignificant details, like selling a table or a couch, hide a deeply personal story about love, and the fragility of the hope for new beginnings. In these small, fleeting moments between home and work, she is rewriting her story, while the ordinary tram ride becomes the extraordinary vessel navigating the delicate space between now and tomorrow.
Just before leaving was created for Cities and Memory's Autumn Project, reimagining the sound of a Melbourne tram.
The tension is palpable: the writer furiously pounds the keys of the typewriter searching for the perfect setting for the story she wants to tell, but inspiration is slow to come. Yet with every attempt, the environment becomes vividly clear, if only the phone would stop ringing!
Immerse yourself in a cinematic sound tour de force, and you too will feel as if you are there, on a warm, humid night filled with cicadas, peeking over the shoulder at what the fingers are tapping on the keys of the old typewriter.
Created for Audio Flux 06 [creative tension].
Photo by Sarah Yessenbayeva on Unsplash
Variations in Memory Flat [bilingual Italian and English - links to translated videos below], is a quiet reflection on childhood memories, caught in a kitchen between big moments of joy and small, unexpected sadness.
This is the final outcome of my participation in THE ECCO, unveiled at the ((XMTR)) Festival.
Slippery memory, the theme chosen for THE ECCO’s second cohort, was more than a concept, it was a sensation that speaks to those memories that slip away and hide just as you try to grasp and describe them.
I tried to translate this fleeting quality into sonic impressions, guided by the fragmented recollections of an ever-unreliable narrator.
This piece represents a pivotal moment in my creative journey: an intimate investigation that wants to open a doorway into what remains with us and what time quietly erases.
The project is shaped by the interplay of languages and memories, softened by the patina of recollection, a gentle coating that sweetens even those moments that, when they occurred in the past, left us grasping for meaning.
I am profoundly grateful to Jasmin Bauomy, founder of THE ECCO, for giving me the opportunity to be part of this group and for the vision and the guidance that were pivotal in bringing to light what I didn’t even know I needed to express.
I am grateful to the group of European audio producers of THE ECCO, who have become my friends. We spent some incredible days in our Tuscany retreat, writing, playing, cooking, eating, talking, feeding the fox, crying, and laughing. We shared experiences, doubts, and ideas, forging bonds that are difficult to articulate.
This has been an amazing experience of growth and discovery.
I invite you to listen closely, to immerse yourselves in these fluid, slippery memories, to discover reflections of your own stories within, and to embrace the beautiful ambiguity of what slips through our fingers yet lingers in our minds.
Text, editing and voice: M. Cristina Marras
Producer: Jasmin Bauomy
Additional sound engineer: Jesse Lawson
Was passiert, wenn eine Uhr, die früher an der Wand hing, nicht mehr funktioniert und weggeworfen wird? Und warum fühlen wir uns gezwungen, eine Streichholzschachtel zu schütteln, selbst wenn wir sie nicht benutzen wollen? In diesem Werk finden Sie keine endgültige Antwort auf diese Fragen, aber ich lade dich trotzdem ein, zuzuhören – für eine ruhige Erkundung der beständigen Gewohnheiten unseres Gedächtnisses, dessen, was nach dem Verschwinden von Menschen und Gegenständen aus unserem Leben bleibt, und wie der Klang ihres Lebens lange nach ihrem Verschwinden nachklingt.
Diese Geschichte habe ich für Small Audio Art erstellt, eine von Phoebe McIndoe gegründete Gemeinschaft von Künstlern und Audiomachern, die in einer zerstreuten Welt Zusammengehörigkeit suchen. Das Thema für dieses Audio war "Uhr".
Bildbearbeitung des Fotos von Abiodun Ageh bei Unsplash
I take you on a journey of creativity, surprises and changes of direction, because this story evolves in ways I didn’t expect.
I started intending to record an interview with my friend Kathleen McCann, who painted the painting I wanted to talk about for my Small Audio Art project. A friend who lives 10 hours time difference away.
I end up sharing much more, beyond the messages I sent, the questions I wrote, the quiet rooms I asked for.
The piece becomes a gentle reflection on time, care, and the balance between being present and absent. Hard moments in life quietly emerge, along with the demands on time, and the love that carries through it all.
Join me in this quiet and thoughtful exploration of art, friendship, and the spaces between sound and silence. I hope it stays with you.
The painting that inspired me was created by my good friend of many adventures, artist, activist and overall amazing human being Kathleen McCann.
Small Audio Art is a community brought together by Phoebe McIndoe with artists and audio makers looking for togetherness in a scattered world. The prompt for this audio was 'painting'.
Ich erzähle einen kleinen, aber eindringlichen Moment, der mein eigenes Bedauern über meine Reaktion in einem bestimmten Moment unseres kollektiven Lebens widerspiegelt. Eine Reflexion darüber, wie leicht Angst unsere Wahrnehmung verzerren kann und uns vergessen lässt, was wirklich zählt: Mitgefühl und Hoffnung. Diese Arbeit hat den zweiten Preis beim Kurzhörspielwettbewerb der Hörspielwiese Kölln 2025 gewonnen.
"Eine Glanzleistung, die vor allem von der Stimme von M. Cristina Marras lebt."
Diese Arbeit ist eine Adaption und Neuinterpretation eines ursprünglich auf Englisch für Small Audio Art erstellten Audios, das auch von Radiophrenia 2025 veröffentlicht wurde.
This is my very first commissioned piece in German, published on Deutschanldfunk Kultur's Doku Drops, a monthly audio magazine curated and moderated by Judith Geffert and Ingo Kottkamp, featuring short documentary pieces.
In my piece, Da ist dieser Moment (There is this moment), I explore that fleeting, endless moment of waiting, the pause between dialling a phone number and hearing the other side pick up.
What seems like nothing on the outside opens up an entire universe of thoughts, feelings, and possibilities on the inside.
Text, sound and voice: M. Cristina Marras
Producer: Judith Geffert
Artwork Photo by Adam Hamel on Unsplash
A surreal exchange of words by the Aurora Bridge, near the railway. A dialogue between unlikely spies that makes a mockery of spy stories with irony and nonsense.
The scene is set by the historic bridge in Seattle, known for its striking presence over Lake Union. This audio work reimagines the soundscape of the Hannover Hydroelectric Power Plant. It is part of the Cities and Memory project, blending place, story, and sound to invite listeners into a playful world of coded secrets and hidden meanings.
Created for Cities and Memory using the 'Hydroelectric power plant, Hannover' recording by Jurgen Morgenstern-Feise.
Photo by Nationaal Archief on Unsplash
Created in 2 days, just as the rules of Sonic Dash require, without too much fuss, a bit rough and really rushed.
The theme was 'too much information,' to be interpreted freely. My luck is having a lot of interesting and original friends scattered around the world who come to my aid without asking too many questions when I show up again with one of my strange requests.
You might actually recognise some voices (many of them work in the podcast and audio world), but I am not writing their names here. Because when I asked them to tell me 'too much information,' I also specified that it didn’t necessarily had to be true. In short, don’t form any opinions based solely on what you hear here, I warn you!
I’ve already thanked my friends personally, even those I couldn’t include (there were many friends and only two minutes to fill), but I still like to repeat my thanks here because this really is a wonderful community.
Enjoy the ride! (works best with headphones).
Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash
A story of childhood wonder, loss, and the consequences of chasing what we don’t fully understand, a cautionary tale about the stories we inherit, the memories we cling to, and the dangers of tampering with time-real or imagined.
Photo by Egor Litvinov on Unsplash
What happens when a clock that used to hang at the wall stops working, and is thrown away? And why do we feel compelled to shake a matchbox, even if we do not intend to use it? In this work you will not find a definitive answer to these questions, but I invite you to listen nonetheless, for a quiet exploration of the persistent habits of our memory, of what remains after people and objects disappear from our life, how the sound of their lives lingers long after they are gone.
I created this story for Small Audio Art, a community created by Phoebe McIndoe with artists and audio makers looking for togetherness in a scattered world. The prompt for this audio was 'clock'.
Image reworking of Photo by Abiodun Ageh on Unsplash
A haunting monologue, a power struggle between two vastly different entities.
The speaker (a woman trapped in a toxic relationship?) reveals pain and vulnerability, shattered by constant attacks. But amidst the despair, a chilling undercurrent of defiance emerges. The speaker unveils a disturbing truth: a force to be reckoned with, a presence that has infiltrated their tormentor's very being.
As the monologue progresses, the listener's perspective shifts, drawn in by the speaker's menacing words and the hint of a power far beyond their initial fragility.
The final revelation questions the true nature of the dominance and the unsettling reality that unfolds.
The narrative explores the complex emotions of returning to your homeland to see, possibly for the last time, an ageing parent.
The salty air, the rocking of the ferry, all becomes sensory details that evoke the physical experience of the journey. Yet, beneath the surface lies a deeper turmoil, a haunting question about goodbyes and the fragility of life.
More of a borderline stream-of-consciousness than a tutorial. Despite beginning with a promising premise—teaching the listener how to carve a wooden spoon—the guide quickly veers off into obscure, yet weirdly specific, tangents that overshadow any practical advice. Listeners end up with some very useful advice, just not necessarily on carving wooden spoons.
The ultimate guide that is certain to leave you frustrated if wooden spoon carving is what you're after!
I created this story for Small Audio Art, a community created by Phoebe McIndoe with artists and audio makers looking for togetherness in a scattered world.
This audio creation starts from the prompt 'wooden spoon'.
Night Radio was one of my first podcasts. Unfortunately it required the voice talent of a young girl and of a mature man with a deep voice, and I had no one to ask.
But I was really keen on telling the story: a young, impressionable girl who spent her sleepless nights listening to a mature man who covered the graveyard shift on the local radio, philosophising about the world with his beautiful, deep voice, a voice that in the darkness, evoked incredible worlds and strong feelings in the girl's mind.
The year was 2013, I lived in Melbourne, and I was still trying to find my community of podcasters. The only place where I felt at home was SoundCloud, which, back then, was a cool boutique platform based in Berlin (oh! how have things changed since!), and that's where I reached out.
Actually, it was the other way around: one morning I woke up to find that the views on my SoundCloud channel had skyrocketed (several thousand compared to the usual few dozen): I had been named Soundclouder of the Day. That's how I started exchanging messages with SoundCloud's extraordinaire community leader, Luke Leighfield, and with his help, I put out a call to audition for the two voices I needed to tell my story.
I remember very well the euphoria of listening to the voices of the dozens of people who auditioned, and I must say that when I heard the voices of Bailey Castle and Darren Kleven, I immediately knew that they were perfect for what I had in mind.
Those were pretty anything-goes times for podcasts, and in fact, I decided to use Stairway to Heaven at the beginning of my piece—which was the theme song of the night program that I had fallen madly in love with as a girl (it won't surprise anyone to know that the story is autobiographical).
Listening to Night Radio again lately, I thought that it was too good to stay private, so I replaced the initial music (with something legit) but left everything else as it was: raw, unpolished (I created it using Audacity, go figure!), naive, and yet, thanks to the fantastic interpretations of Bailey and Darren, it retains its nocturnal magic.
Dedicated to all those who have fallen in love with a voice on the radio.
(If anyone is curious to know what happened with my radio crush, I can only say that it had quite a different ending. Write me in private if you want the details).
Voices: Bailey Castle and Darren Kleven
Words & Production: M. Cristina Marras
Photo by Chandan Chaurasia on Unsplash
A comedic game show called You've Got to Be Kidding Me tests contestants' knowledge of a dystopian society's new constitution and the decrees of their Glorious Supreme President.
When I created this for the Silver Sound Biannual Sonic Dash competition in January 2025, it sounded like something fun and out of this world.
By May 2025, in the US, they are talking about having people compete for a green card by taking part in a quiz show. Yes, it is depressing. And no, if someone had asked me, I would have chosen a different audio creation to be transformed into reality.
Anyway, the piece was created from scratch within 48 hours in response to a prompt emailed to participants on Friday, January 3rd, 2025.
All sounds and music in the audio drama were created by me and the rest of my family (my son Romeo and my husband Gianfranco) without any external support or pre-existing materials. None of us can compose music-the theme song is simply us singing.
One funny bit trivia: all finalists met for a collective listening session on January 6th (does this date ring a bell?), and my entry was the only one dealing with contemporary politics and also the only one from Italy (that I know of).
Written and produced by M. Cristina Marras
Voices: Romeo M. Minutolo (the amazing Quiz Master); Gianfranco Bitti (the lucky Giuseppe); M. Cristina Marras (the wise but not so good after all Maria).
Image Freepik www.freepik.com
This is one of the stories created for All The Best Radio's 24 hour radio challenge, in which producers were tasked with creating audio stories from scratch in a day. I participated from Sardinia (Italy) with a story starting with a recurring dream.
Here you can listen to all the entries.
Photo by Quinn Korsune on Unsplash
[29/11/2024]
I created this story for Small Audio Art, a community created by Phoebe McIndoe with artists and audio makers "looking for togetherness in a scattered world". The prompt was 'window'.
I recount a small but poignant moment that reflects my own regret over the way I reacted in a specific moment of our collective lives. A reflection on how easily fear can distort one's perception, making us forget what really matters: compassion and hope.
Small Audio Art
Featured on RADIOPHRENIA 2025
Release date:
29 November 2024
This piece was one of the 15 finalists in Audio Flux Circuit 04. The prompt asked for a three-minute piece that referenced an object related to a first and included the sound of time passing (but not a clock).
I decided to tell about the day I did something that no one in my family had ever done before me. I'd rather not tell you what so as not to spoil the narration. Featuring: strong sense of atmosphere, moods shift, and anticipation and a study on class, family, and the weight of expectation.
Here more about Audio Flux.
[10/11/2024]