A Creative Playground for Audio: Inside Audio Flux with Julie Shapiro
A look at Audio Flux’s 3-minute audio challenges & how to submit to the next one
I spoke with Julie Shapiro, longtime audio leader (Third Coast, PRX’s Radiotopia, lots more) and co-founder of Audio Flux (Team Audio Flux), one of the most interesting creative playgrounds in audio — but not just for audio creators!
Audio Flux invites anyone to make three-minute audio pieces responding to a theme and a set of creative prompts. There are two circuits per year and they culminate in selected works being showcased publicly, often at live listening events. But the bigger point of Audio Flux isn’t the competition or what selected Flux Works get for their participation… it’s the invitation to experiment.
What Audio Flux Is (+ Why It Exists)
Julie started Audio Flux with producer John DeLore as a response to something many creators were feeling: fatigue in an increasingly industrialized podcast ecosystem.
The idea is: bring back joy, creativity, and community by introducing people to a multi-media artist and then giving participants constraints that spark imagination.
Each circuit includes:
A theme (in collaboration with an artist)
A few creative prompts / parameters
A strict runtime of about three minutes for the final submitted piece
Sometimes the paired artist is a very visual art maker, which presents a fun challenge for Audio Flux submitters. For example, for circuit 03, participants needed to incorporate the color blue into their piece… sonically.
Circuit 07: “Trash or Treasure”
Circuit 07 submissions are due on April 6th. The theme for this one is inspired by Kenyan artist Cyrus Kabiru, who creates art from discarded materials and e-waste.
Creators are asked to produce a three-minute audio piece that:
Tells a climate-related story
Includes a found or discarded object
Uses at least one sound recorded in Kabiru’s studio
Takeaways From Our Conversation👇
Whether you submit work to Audio Flux’s circuit 07 or not, this challenge offers a useful framework for creative flexibility and practice. Here are some takeaways:
Use constraints to unlock creativity
Even rules that seem rigid — like a strict runtime or required prompt — can make storytelling easier, not harder.
Try this: when writing your next newsletter or podcast script, give yourself some constraints to stick to.
Treat short projects as prototypes
Some Flux Works have evolved into larger projects, including pilots developed for festivals like Tribeca.
Try this: test out a segment within your podcast that you may one day spin off into its own show (or series). See how listeners react.
Collaboration expands your thinking
Working from prompts inspired by other art forms forces new storytelling angles.
Try this: choose an artist (any medium) and work “with” them. It might mean reading one of their poems to supplement your work, linking to their Instagram in your newsletter, or inviting them to collaborate on your show, in your writing, as part of a live event…
Make The Thing For The Sake Of Making The Thing!
One of the pieces I want to highlight from our conversation: you don’t have to be an “audio person” to submit a piece to Audio Flux. You can use your phone! It pick up pretty great audio. You might partner with someone who knows more about audio / project management than you do. Or, truly, you might just want to make something for the sake of it. Flex your creativity.
Audio Flux is essentially “a zine for your ears” (Julie is a zine maker too) — a community-driven project designed to keep creative audio alive.
Links for Further Exploration:
She a Good Girl Despite Some Evidence to the Contrary (Sharif Youssef)
Wendy MacNaughton (from circuit 01)
Thank you to everyone who joined us live, including: Gabriel Berezin, Christopher Rudder, Dan Delgado, Geoff McQueen, Karen Michaels 🦋, and many others! And to Julie, for joining me for this conversation. Happy Fluxing!
