Transmissions
XMTR Festival 26: Stand At The Shoreline And Listen
Katharina Smets and Katherina Lindekens (BE, 2026)
Katharina Smets & Katherina Lindekens (BE, 2026)
30 min
Stand at the shoreline and listen' is a soundwalk inviting you to do just that: to look at the sea and explore its myriad meanings. This meditative trio for listener, headphones and St Leonards-on-Sea is inspired by Virgina Woolf’s 'The Waves'. In her rhapsodic novel, Woolf punctuates the words of six narrators with detailed descriptions of the sea, moving from sunrise to sunset. Similarly, Katharina Smets and Katherina Lindekens create a polyphonic experiential landscape, interlacing field recordings with musings on the sea by coast-dwellers from the four corners of the earth. This soundwalk is designed to be experienced together, but with space — for your own thoughts, for your own experiences of the sea in this shared moment. In the end, we are all looking at the same body of water, but with our own eyes, ears and bodies.
Produced by Katharina Smets and Katherina Lindekens
Commissioned by XMTR Audio Arts Festival 2026
XMTR Festival 26: Sweet Talk
Mri Berlin (DE, 2026)
Miri Berlin (DE, 2026)
9 min
A moment in a local kitchen, recorded and produced as part of the XMTR Festival residency. The cakes were actually made for the women selling their vintage items in the back garden, to enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee during their breaks. But somehow visitors and friends also found their way into the kitchen, and the cakes were so popular that they were soon gone. "Sweet Talk" is a collage of these small encounters in the kitchen. The cakes take centre stage, drawing everyone’s attention and becoming the focus of the conversations.
Produced by Miri Berlin
Commissioned by XMTR Audio Arts Festival 2026
XMTR Festival 26: The Pier Sings
Katharina Smets and Katherina Lindekens (BE, 2026)
Tony Birch (UK, 2026)
15 min
Celebrating the amazing momentary space created under the pier twice a day, The Pier Sings captures the sound of the waves and resonance of the structure at high tide and plays it back binaurally in the same position at low tide.
Produced by Tony Birch
Commissioned by XMTR Audio Arts Festival 2026
XMTR Festival 26: St Leonard’s Bathing Pool Remembered
Mri Berlin (DE, 2026)
Mary Hooper (UK, 2026)
16 min
This audio work has been created with the voices of people who have memories of swimming and working at the former Bathing Pool in St. Leonards. The pool was built in 1933 as an Olympic training pool for the Empire Games, one of only 3 in the UK, and as a public resource to encourage health and fitness. The pool passed into private hands in 1960 and was turned into a holiday camp, but it became financially unviable by the 1980’s. The pool was demolished in1989 and is now a much contested site between local people who would like to keep the open space as community resource and a series of Developers, who plan to build up to 146 dwellings.
This collection of memories spanning 60 years of the Bathing Pool’s life is a remarkable example of how buildings can generate a Genius Loci of people and place. Memories, history and identity are anchored in these places, showing how important it is to create and preserve public spaces where everyone can congregate in an egalitarian space, building memories that last a life time and beyond, marking changes in culture, life style and community over generations.
Thank you to the people whose voices have contributed many precious, funny and moving memories that bring the Bathing Pool back to life: Cath Cooper, Andrew Weight, Doug Edworthy, Rob Edworthy, Sally Smith, Janette Morley, John Purfield, Jessica Beaghen, John Stout, and Polly Sharkey.
Produced by Mary Hooper
This audio story was developed with in collaboration with Lucia Scazzocchio Social Broadcasts and XMTR. Many thanks to Artists Now Company who provided bursary support to seed fund this project.
Commissioned by XMTR Audio Arts Festival 2026
XMTR Radio Hour #46: Sounds from XMTR Festival
Social Broadcasts (UK 2026)
Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2026)
60 min / Episode 46 of 46
This XMTR Radio Hour gives a little taste of what people experienced at the XMTR Audio Arts Festival St Leonards-on-Sea followed by a field trip to Dungeness. You’ll hear a montage from works, sound walks, performances and installations made for and experienced at the festival as well as recordings from some of the events, installations and happenings and some short audio pieces made over that weekend.
The works featured are:
Floating in St Leonards by Miri Berlin, Stand at the shoreline and listen a sound walk by- Katharina Smets + Katherina Lindekens, Shanty singing recorded by Helly McGovern, The Pier Sings by Tony Birch, Squid games 1am by Marie Chesteron, All Washed Up a sound walk by Sarah Frosh + Pete Hazell, Hand Pan by Mike Willis, Squirrel pan / recounting a squirrel story -Simon Schaffer Meet me by the Rose Garden with Colour Carver and Jude Montague and Mary Ann Joyes on the accordion, Jackson's Sonic Relay / Jackson (aged 3) + horns- Jessica Beck + Jackson, Breakfast by Carrie Rolls, Isobel Anderson on the coach to Dungeness followed by some field recording of Dungeness recorded by Cath Carver, Manhunt in St Leonards a sound walk by M. Cristina Marras and Gianfranco Bitti, Closing ceremony with Balladeste improvising to the sounds you recorded during the festival for the Sonic Relay collected by Suzie McCarthy, triggered by Dinahbird and hosted by Helen Zaltzman.
XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio
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LoveLanguageLoss
Linda Rae Dornan (CA, 2009-2025)
Linda Rae Dornan (CA, 2009-2025)
5 min
This is an audio art piece about dementia and caregiving recorded over many years as Linda cared for her partner, John Asimakos. The journal she kept was too emotionally difficult to read so she eventually transcribed it backwards to alleviate her own response. Transcription uses this reversed journal, cutup techniques and constant repetition collaged with John’s own voice as he tried to communicate. Constant repetition references the incomprehension and deterioration of language evident within the gradual decline of dementia patients. The audio piece attempts to share an interior space of intensity and tenderness within the isolated world of dementia.
Produced by Linda Rae Dornan
The Flyover Gallery
Dirt Poets (UK, 2025)
The Dirt Poets (UK, 2025)
20 min
Dirt Poets is a creative collective between writer Peter Shukie, sound artist Paul Nataraj, and artist Rebecca Taylor Murray.
In this first chapter Shukie is our guide to help us see beyond the emptiness of the liminal spaces of modernity. Instead he allows the void beneath the flyover to be the catalyst for a story which navigates some of the trajectories that led to its creation.
Sound: Paul Nataraj
Words: Peter Shukie
Mastering: Jamie Hamilton
XMTR Radio Hour #45: XMTR Festival Preview
Social Broadcasts (UK 2026)
Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2026)
60 min / Episode 45 of 45
This XMTR Radio Hour is a preview of what’s in store at this year’s XMTR Audio Arts Festival 25-27 September in St Leonards on Sea, UK.
Lucia speaks to local multi-disciplinary artist, musician and Resonance FM regular Jude Montague about some of the festival highlights and this celebration of sonic storytelling and all things audio.
The show also features audio works by festival contributors:
Floating in St Leonards Miri Berlin
Good Clean Fun by Hayley Clarke,
Habitual Rituals by Stellaria Media,
Manhunt in St Leonards by M Cristina Marras + Gianfranco Biffi,
Five and Twenty to Eleven by Limbo Tapes,
Our Bodies by Martina Pouchlà
FIELDS by Ariana Martinez.
Look out for the live festival broadcast hosted by Ed Baxter on Resonance Extra: 26 + 27 September 10am-6pm.
XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio
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Festival Selects: Star Map
Nanna Hauge Kristensen (DK, 2024)
Nanna Hauge Kristensen (DK 2024)
6 min
A personal piece about human navigation, star maps and star sounds.
Produced by Nanna Hauge Kristensen
Produced for Falling Tree. Featured on Short Cuts, “Constellations”, BBC4. With Ferdinand Hauge Leth.
Music by Kirstine Lindemann, captured by Trawl Hz.
Festival Selects: Everything And The Kitchen Sink
Martin Austwick (CA 2025)