Page - 45 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Patricia Jäggi | Cosmopolitan Noises 45 The term bruitages comes from the French ‘bruit’ which means (unwanted) noise or sound. But in the context of its usage in radio production it can be translated as atmosphere. In the archive of the Swiss Shortwave Service I found bruitage recordings from the train station in Berne, from mountain trains or a mountain hut with people yodelling, from a cow fight event, and from an airplane landing on a glacier. Sound technicians and reporters recorded so-called bruitages for their use in post-production. They were used as sound effects to ‘atmospherise’ the ‘clean’ studio recordings which lacked any atmospheres. The recording of such sound effects by the radio stations stopped in the 1970s when vinyl recordings with libraries of pre-recorded ‘atmospheres’ could be bought on the market. These examples show how the recording of local sounds became an important technique used for Switzerland’s self-representation abroad. Making the atmosphere Swiss was accomp- lished not only by choosing Swiss music and topics, but also by bringing Switzerland itself as close as possible to the listener. My listenings showed that noisy (geräuschhafte) programmes with outdoor recordings were not only perceived as more atmospheric, but also, thanks to their imperfections, as more authentic. This was an important issue in the larger context of Cold War propaganda, because propaganda was seen as deception and thus a malicious form of inauthenticity. Using on-the-spot recordings enabled radio producers to make atmospheres Swiss and authentic. Beyond the political aims of the broadcaster, an aesthetic interest in ‘Swiss’ soundscapes was part of a general interest in sound recording and experimentation which flourished during the Cold War. The development of affordable and lighter recording and production technologies generated a huge creative potential for music and radio production. One of the historically im- portant examples in experimentation with prerecorded sounds is the  musique concrète.  Not only musical instruments and the human voice but also elements of the acoustic environment were recorded and used for musical compositions. One of the best-known examples of sound experi - ments in radio is the BBC’s radiophonic workshop, which started in 1958 to produce sound effects and radiophonic (experimental) music for BBC productions. The recording and creative usage of tape sound was not limited to avant-garde composers. A community of hobbyists grew during the Cold War. As sound hunters they competed in international sound hunting gather- ings with their tape sound productions (Bijsterveld 2004). There were even guidebooks for beginners in musique concrète (Dwyer 1976). Sound effects were on everyone’s lips. With regard to an auditory-sensory history, there emerged a heightened awareness of what, over the course of the Cold War, became scientifically described as a soundscape (Schafer 1994 [1977]), and a strong valorisation of elements of the soundscape as a creatively usable and makeable sonic atmosphere. In my second listening adventure, I left the archive and the making of atmospheres by humans and entered the ether and with it also the making of atmospheres by the non-human agents of communication technology. Into the ether: reenacting former listening experiences International radio stations depended highly on listener reactions. In the early years of short- wave broadcasting, even the feedback on reception quality was imperative. The listeners were asked to send QSL-cards, a standardised way through which they confirmed their reception.