Return to Sender. Lessons in Cultural Participation from Europe’s Independent Broadcasters

Signals2Noise main room in silent green – © Black Rhino Radio

There are signals flickering from the underground. Literally, as Signals2Noise takes place in the brutalist underbelly of the old crematorium in Berlin-Wedding, a venue much more spacious and inviting than it may sound. As you enter, you’re greeted by a steep decline, resembling the entrance of a car park. A sound installation hidden in the walls draws you into a wholly new world.

Silent green, the cultural centre that curates the vast premises, made space for this unique gathering of community radio makers from all over Europe. They’re brought together by a common wish which many of us feel with increasing urgency: connecting on a grassroots level, across borders and cultural distinction lines, actively pushing back against the dynamics that keep us further apart. And while hijacking the airwaves is a great start, there’s no better way to grasp the impact of one’s own cultural participation than to meet up, have a dance and a drink, and put some friendly faces to the voices you’ve heard online.

 Manifesto of Avant Garde Public Service Broadcasting installation – © Black Rhino Radio

Do it yourself, claim it yourself

Signals2Noise is the brainchild of Berlin’s Cashmere Radio and the team behind Easterndaze, a predecessor of sorts, which highlighted Central and Eastern European music subcultures between 2016 and 2021. While maintaining Easterndaze’s ethos of togetherness and connectivity, Signals2Noise has shifted the scope towards independent broadcasting in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Nordics. Silent Green’s industrial charm and pastoral yard area provide a perfect, deliberately disorienting stage for this kaleidoscope of perspectives.

DIY broadcasting is at the centre of Signals2Noise, but its intersectional ethos allows for different angles. Accordingly, the day starts (or: my day starts, there are countless ways to experience Signals2Noise, as I will find out) with a workshop curated by Reset!, discussing advocacy as a core element for radio makers and beyond. Kicking things off are Cycles Studios, a young Berlin agency composed of colleagues Sidney, Lara, Princela, and Kymani. Their curation and production company moves between corporate and independent clients–a value-led enterprise that is driven by the question: “whose stories do we tell?” but also, “who’s behind the lens, behind the scenes?”.

In the second part of the workshop, Sean Finnan from Dublin Digital Radio presents a case study of advocacy in the radio realm. Together with his collective, Sean and DDR worked on a manifesto for independent broadcasting, which they’ve developed during a speculative symposium. The findings of their symposium were then officially submitted to the Irish parliament, which in turn signaled motions towards recognising community radio activities in politically meaningful ways. Prints of the manifesto are to be found everywhere at Signals2Noise, reminding the participants that their radio practice, too, can be a form of direct cultural policy making.

One thing that stuck with me after the DDR presentation was Sean’s emphasis on community radio as archive building in culturally often streamlined environments. Sure, the immediacy of independent broadcasting is unmatched… but the archival idea may become even more important in years to come. As such, community radios are a low-stakes, highly effective way for people to prove their existence, thoughts, and practices in a specific time and space. Every broadcast leaves a footprint.

I exit the workshop with ideas about the purpose of broadcasting; what do you use it for, and to whose benefit? Getting behind a mic and a mixer is in itself an act of cultural participation, as you throw yourself and your ideas out there without asking for permission. Having someone lobby for your right to do so in the parliament seems like a logical next step towards more democratic impact for grassroots media.

 Participating radios installation – © Black Rhino Radio

Two-Way Transmissions

Next, I’m heading up the stairs for a presentation by one of the core members of this conglomerate of radio enthusiasts, ICRN. The Independent Community Radio Network operates out of Vilnius, Lithuania, and it exists to connect DIY radio makers from the Baltics, Scandinavia, and beyond. Cashmere Radio, the co-organisers of the event, are also part of ICRN.

I get in just in time for a humorous presentation by Copenhagen’s The Lake Radio, showcasing some of their experimental festival reporting from Roskilde. They’re followed by another standout presentation from RadiOrakel, an intersectional feminist radio station established in 1982 in Oslo. In fact, it is widely believed to be the first feminist radio station worldwide. Beaming out of a punk venue called Blitz, RadiOrakel is open to all genders, with two thirds of the crew being female or gender minorities. While it all started in Norwegian, they have shifted towards more English-language programming since the 1990s. They’re also one of the few community radios with a large, coveted FM presence.

Equally fascinating but for different reasons is the talk by Jonatan Spejlborg from Seydisfjördur Community Radio. They’re transmitting from a remote village in Iceland with 600 inhabitants. Naturally, the radio activities are deeply ingrained with the life of the villagers, who help house, feed, and create with the artists, living side-by-side throughout the year as temporary (and returning) neighbours. Jonatan first plays an address by the mayor, followed by a recording of two guys patrolling through the village in their car as they’re hit by a snowstorm. Music is blaring from the car radio as the broadcast is turning into an audio buddy comedy. The radio is one of the many artistic projects connected to Lunga School, an arts residency space based in an old school.

Intermezzo:

Meanwhile, downstairs, a whole other type of action is going down in the massive main hall. Three performers from Ljubljana in stereotypical Europeans-abroad vacancy attire are drinking beer, skipping rope, throwing and juggling tennis balls while performing rudimentary songs. Balls fly towards the audience & get slung back. Stumbling from one otherworldly experience into the next is like switching dials, abruptly going from one frequency to another. As I head back up for some fresh air in the yard, I am told I just missed a whistling performance.

Inspired by his talk, I meet Jonatan from Seydisfjördur lounging in a bean bag for a more extensive chat about the history of Lunga School and Seydisfjördur Community Radio. It all started with an artist residency, and four Danish artists (Jonatan being one of them) buying a house in the village. But the area has a long history of hosting artists. Fluxus-cohort Dieter Roth touched down there in the 1980s, and it has been a cultural hub ever since. “There’s no divide between the visiting artists and the craftsmen of the village,” he explains the unique dynamics of the place. “Whenever we needed help with anything, the people just came and helped. They didn’t even ask why or what for. I never experienced anything like it,” he marvels. The school is right at the city centre, it houses up to 20 interdisciplinary art practitioners for three months, and is mostly government-funded. Since 2014, there has been the annual LungA Festival, which due to a lack of resources has had its final edition in 2024. Seydisfjördur Community Radio is one of the more outward-facing projects of this collective. Most of its presenters have been staying at the residency once, some have stayed for good, but most have left Iceland after their stint. In a way, they now use the radio to communicate and stay in touch with each other. So the transmissions go both ways, really. A potent reminder that the hosts themselves and their interactions with one another, are often a key demographic for community radios. But even more importantly, the story of Seydisfjördur Community Radio is a stark reminder that cultural participation can and must not be exclusive to the bigger metropolitan areas. Especially in regions that can easily feel left behind by the nerve centres of power and art, creative collaboration can be the glue of lived, eye-level democracy.

Presentation of ICRN – © Black Rhino Radio

Common Spaces

This political dimension comes back up in a substantial panel downstairs, in which Signals2Noise co-organiser Ieva Gudaitytė discusses with the founders of Leipzig’s Sphere Radio, Simon Clement, and Hungary’s Lahmacun Radio, Peter Bokor. Especially the latter provides a sharp analysis of which role community radio can play for a scene and society per se–and which not. “Our radio is not an educational platform. Inherently it is, but it’s not part of the mission. Simply because listener numbers are sobering.” What reads as a bleak statement at first, is much more of a reminder that community radio is first and foremost a space and network of independent creators to find each other and develop ideas further. “Being an independent medium is non-trivial in Hungary right now,” he stresses. This sense of urgency, and the synchronicity of humour, silliness, and direct political and cultural action in the face of totalitarian and monocultural tendencies, is very much present throughout the whole day. Capturing this complexity and turning it into a tangible experience, is Signal2Noise’s huge achievement.

Gradually, day turns to night. Although you can barely tell: the concrete and synthetic lights have worked well enough that the hours have passed almost unnoticed. The music is getting louder and the bar space more crowded–a clear sign that we’re all about to enter the next phase of Signals2Noise, which is equally important as the daytime discourse: clubbing. It’s already going down upstairs, but most of the visitors are about to get ready for the official club night at nearby Panke. As with every good gathering, it takes a while to leave, so we’re all getting stuck outside the metal doors.

Looking over the areal, beer in hand, talking with someone who has a striking similarity with a young Depeche Mode member and even more outrageous pop music stories, I keep coming back to the meaning of space. Better yet: occupying space, taking up room, transforming old schools, barns, tiny apartments, and abandoned offices to set up what in earlier decades would have been a pirate station. There’s beauty in the idea of having a little corner, but it’s just big enough to help send your ideas and favourite tunes into the ether.

Taking up this much space, as the heads behind Easterndaze, ICRN, Cashmere Radio have done by throwing a whole day fest at the old crematory in Wedding, was a bold move for a–seemingly–disparate group of indie broadcasters. But to see them all in one spot, each curating their own section of this day packed with new approaches and communal listening experiences, it made sense immediately.

Reset! network talk – © Black Rhino Radio