2015’s been quite a year for Cities and Memory, with various projects, installations and conference presentations.

Here’s a quick look back at how our year went – a huge THANK YOU to everyone who sent in a field recording, remixed a sound or simply stopped in to listen.

It means a lot to us to know there’s a whole community of people out there following Cities and Memory!

Sound projects in 2015

• Oblique Strategies: artists reimagined field recordings using creative techniques from Eno and Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards.
• Quiet Street: reimagining the entire city of Bath in the UK for a two-week installation and an online sound map – including one piece with 30 vocal contributions!

• Sound Waves: celebrating World Listening Day 2015 with a sonic examination of the role water plays in our everyday lives.

• Utopia: imagining the soundscapes from one of literature’s most iconic works, Thomas More’s Utopia.
• Berlin Ringbahn: a special album-length composition made for us by contributor Martin Kristopher last month.

Installations

• Kymmata: we began the year with a three-hour installation as part of a multidisciplinary exhibition at the O3 Gallery in Oxford.
• Quiet Street: Our sound map of Bath was also a physical installation as part of the Bath Fringe Arts festival.
• Playground on Fire: An interactive sound installation at the Old Fire Station gallery, Oxford.
• Memoryphones: five interactive sound sculptures across Oxford city centre filled with our sounds – in conjunction with Oxford Contemporary Music and part of Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival.

Conferences

• We were delighted to be a part of Cambridge University’s conference Sound Studies: Art, Experience, Politics in July, speaking on a panel along with Cathy Lane and Ernst Karel.
• In November, we gave a presentation on sonic heritage in cities as part of the Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality conference in Amsterdam. You can see the presentation we gave here.

Of course, the ‘regular’ Cities and Memory project also went from strength to strength this year, as we reached almost 900 sounds in total, spanning 40 countries – with more to come next year, we hope.

Here’s an album release of some of the sonic highlights of our year:

And to sum up the year in figures, here’s how our 2015 looked as an infographic!