Compost of Ideas – The Podcast from the Bin

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Compost of Ideas – The Podcast from the Bin is a short-form audio space where fragments of thought are thrown in, left to ferment, and maybe — someday — bloom. Each week, Samara shares a scrap: a question, a quote, a story, a sound. These episodes don’t explain or resolve. They invite. They decompose. Because sometimes, the best ideas start as leftovers. Audio only — some things grow better in the dark. Thanks to Artemis Samothrakis for the support on the sounds and music.

  1. Your Ghost of Christmas Trash

    12/09/2025

    Your Ghost of Christmas Trash

    What happens when you look at Christmas through the eyes of a waste bin?In this special holiday episode, Samara — as the Ghost of Christmas Trash — walks through the morning-after archaeology of the season: wrapping paper that lived for nine seconds, boxes that lasted longer on Instagram than in the house, and the quiet violence hidden behind our festive rituals. Drawing on Marco Armiero’s Wasteocene and Ed Conway’sMaterial World, the episode explores how waste is not just an object but a system of relationships, and how the raw materials behind our gifts — sand, copper, lithium, oil — carry stories of extraction, displacement, and ecological wounds that usually remain invisible. This is not a moral lecture about buying less.It’s a haunting invitation to see more clearly — and to recognise the hidden journeys behind the objects we celebrate, discard, and forget. Mentioned: Wasteocene: Stories from the Global Dump by Marco ArmieroMaterial World by Ed Conway Relevant previous episodes: Episode 21 Material World: When the Invisible Fails Us — On the hidden infrastructure and physicality behind modern life.

    8 min
  2. The Bell That Was Once a Cannon: Maria Dolens

    12/02/2025

    The Bell That Was Once a Cannon: Maria Dolens

    On sound, memory, and the transformation of violence into peace. Every night at 21:00, a single deep bell rolls across the valley of Trentino-Alto Adige — a sound so low and resonant that it feels like it enters through the ribs rather than the ears. This is Maria Dolens, the Bell of the Fallen, forged in 1924 from the bronze of cannons collected across former World War I battlefields.A weapon turned into a warning.Metal meant for destruction recast into a daily ritual of peace. In this episode of Compost of Ideas – The Podcast from the Bin, Samara explores: The history of this extraordinary bell How a border region scarred by war turned its pain into a symbol The physicality of materials — and how they carry memory The way sound can become a messenger, like a nightly beacon across mountains Mentioned: Maria Dolens / Campana dei Caduti, Fondazione Related Episodes Episode 21 — Material World: When the Invisible Fails Us Episode 4 — Is War Inevitable?

    9 min
  3. Material World: When the Invisible Fails Us

    11/26/2025

    Material World: When the Invisible Fails Us

    We think of the internet and our digital lives as weightless — made of data, clouds, and code. But every email, every search, every call runs through cables made of glass and sand, metals and minerals pulled from the Earth.  In this episode of Compost of Ideas – The Podcast from the Bin, we look at how deeply material our world still is, even when we think it’s virtual.  Starting from the story of Tonga — an island cut off from the world after a volcanic eruption severed its only undersea internet cable — we explore the hidden infrastructures and raw materials that keep modern life running.  Inspired by Ed Conway’s book Material World, this episode traces the line between sand and silicon, war and glass, cables and fragility.  Because when the invisible breaks, what we rediscover is just how heavy our world really is.    Notes:  On Tonga’s 2022 eruption https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/sep/30/tonga-pacific-island-internet-underwater-cables-volcanic-eruption?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Othe    Material World by Ed Conway explores the six materials shaping our lives: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125937631-material-world

    8 min
  4. Death & Immortality in Cinema – After Forever

    11/18/2025

    Death & Immortality in Cinema – After Forever

    The final episode of the trilogy Death & Immortality in Cinema — a compost of ideas born from my old university thesis on science-fiction cinema and the human pursuit of eternity. In this closing chapter, we step beyond the threshold. What happens when the dream of immortality finally works? When death steps aside, and time stops moving forward? From The Bicentennial Man to Blade Runner 2049, from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to The Truman Show, we explore what remains of humanity when endings disappear — when memory, technology, and eternity blur into one. This episode is not about conquering death, but about thestillness that follows. About what it means to keep creating, loving, and choosing despite knowing it will all end. Referenced: The Bicentennial Man (Chris Columbus, 1999)Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998)Tuck Everlasting

    6 min
  5. Death & Immortality in Cinema - Lab of Immortality

    11/11/2025

    Death & Immortality in Cinema - Lab of Immortality

    This is the second chapter in the trilogy on death, imagination, and the dream of immortality — based on my university thesis on science-fiction cinema. In this episode, we enter the laboratory of imagination: the world of science fiction.A place where faith and reason merge, where scientists become modern priests, and where every invention hides an ancient longing — to live longer, to love longer, to outlast time itself. From Frankenstein to Blade Runner, from Solaris to 2001: A Space Odyssey, this episode explores how cinema has turnedscience into a language of transcendence — and how, when we try to defeat death, we end up inventing myth. Referenced: Mary Shelley, FrankensteinAndrei Tarkovsky, Solaris (1972), Stalker (1979)Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)Steven Spielberg, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Minority Report (2002)Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1982)Abel Gance, J’accuse (1919)Edgar MorinGiuseppe O. Longo

    9 min
  6. Death & Immortality in Cinema - The Fire That Looks Away

    11/04/2025

    Death & Immortality in Cinema - The Fire That Looks Away

    This is the first episode in a three-part series born from my old university thesis on science-fiction cinema, death, and the pursuit of immortality.It explores how our fear of mortality gave birth to culture, art, and finally, cinema itself — the first medium able to capture life while simultaneously preserving death. From the myth of Prometheus to Freud’s idea of illusion, from ancient rituals to the flicker of the first moving image, this episode traces how every act of creation began as an act of defiance against disappearance. Referenced works & voices: Prometheus Bound – Aeschylus Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion Zygmunt Bauman, Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies André Bazin, What is Cinema? Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel Picture from Banksy graffiti.

    7 min
  7. A Journey in the Invisible: Climate Change Seen from the Microscopic World

    10/28/2025

    A Journey in the Invisible: Climate Change Seen from the Microscopic World

    We often talk about climate change in terms of melting glaciers, rising temperatures, or vanishing species.But what if the most radical transformations are happening in a world we can’t see? In this episode of Compost of Ideas – The Podcast from the Bin, we travel into the microscopic world inspired by Antonella Fioravanti’s Viaggio nel mondo invisibile — a book about bacteria, viruses, fungi, and all the invisible organisms that made us, feed us, and might one day destroy or save us. From the reindeer thawing in Siberia to the fungi thrivingin Chernobyl, from antibiotic resistance to new microbial discoveries in the ocean, this episode explores how climate change is not only reshaping the visible world but also the invisible one. Mentioned: 📘 Viaggio nel mondo invisibile by Antonella Fioravanti – an exploration of how microbes shape life and disease. 📖 Mentioned book: I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong.

    8 min
  8. The Crisis of Narration – What Kind of Stories Can Carry Us Through?

    10/21/2025

    The Crisis of Narration – What Kind of Stories Can Carry Us Through?

    Are we in a crisis of narration? And what kind of stories cancarry us through? In this episode, I begin with a personal story from Mongolia — a climb up the Khongoryn Els dunes where I gave up too early, not knowing the breathtaking view waiting on the other side. That memory still reminds me how vision and endurance are tied together, and how much we need stories that show us what lies beyond the struggle. From there, I explore philosopher Byung-ChulHan’s The Crisis of Narration. Han distinguishes between narrative — a deep anchor shared across generations and communities — and storytelling or storyselling — polished, fleeting tales built for fast consumption.He warns that our society is flooded with stories but increasingly deprived of orientation, continuity, and meaning. But are narratives truly vanishing? Or are they shifting —from lone heroes to choirs, from the center to the margins, from urgency to shared visions of what lies beyond the dune? Mentioned: Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/28/amitav-ghosh-where-is-the-fiction-about-climate-change- Other interesting authors on the topic: Anthony Weston, Mobilizing the GreenImagination: An Exuberant Manifesto.Anthony Weston, How To Re-Imagine The World:A Pocket Guide for Practical Visionaries.Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark. Graham Leicester and Maureen O'Hara, Dancingat the Edge: Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century.

    8 min
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Compost of Ideas – The Podcast from the Bin is a short-form audio space where fragments of thought are thrown in, left to ferment, and maybe — someday — bloom. Each week, Samara shares a scrap: a question, a quote, a story, a sound. These episodes don’t explain or resolve. They invite. They decompose. Because sometimes, the best ideas start as leftovers. Audio only — some things grow better in the dark. Thanks to Artemis Samothrakis for the support on the sounds and music.

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