PROTOCOL
Foriginal Media Hack no. 1, 2006
UBERMORGEN.COM feat. Mazzotti
Action
Recorder: Hans Bernhard (hans
at ubermorgen dot com)
20 April 2006
Alister Mazzotti (Mazzotti Action) contacted
UBERMORGEN.COM with the idea for a
Mayday 2006 Police Happy Slapping Stunt (Mazzotti Action is stunt team which
worked with Roman Polanski and the wachowski brothers). In a exstensive
skype-conversation he laid out the very reduced idea of 4 people beating up a
police officer during the 1st of may protests in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Hans
suggested to Alister to use a mobile phone as camera. Alister talked about the
difficulty of finding up to date police uniforms and about finding people
close-mouthed people. The Call was finished by agreeing upon the realisation of
the project and setting the deadline for the video-shoot to April 30, 2006.
26 April 2006
Hans met up with Stefan to
discuss the Action. The decision was to meet up May 1st, 11pm to launch the
Video by sending out the Email to Mailinglists, Blogs, Journalists and
submitting the Story to Mass Media Platforms in a exstended night-session. The
Time for the Releas of the Video is set to 3 am, May 2nd.
28 April 2006
Hans did 6 hours research in
the Blog-World to collect Email-Addresses and work on the conceptual side of
the action (communication strategy). Hans set up a Drama Marketing Character
named Barbara Alex, born 12th of Mai, 1984 in Berlin-Kreuzberg, she has the
email address: alex10969@gmail.com. The
name is a combination of Alex (for Alexanderplatz, on of the main squares in
Berlin) and 10969, the main zip-code for Berlin-Kreuzberg. Also a Youtube and
video.google.com account are setup for Alex. She will act as the Camerawomen
(with her mobile phone) and as the person who sent the Video-Mail to
UBERMORGEN.COM. Strategically Hans
decided to work the media top down, but after reconsidering he now believes in
broad-shooting.
29 April 2006
The Mazzotti Action Crew shot
the Video in the afternoon.
30 April 2006
Hans did 5 hours of research
in the Blog-Universe to collect Email-Addresses of relevant Blogs (Political,
Media, Activism). Hans wrote on the Concept ãPure Media HackingÒ. Also he
installed the url http://www.foriginal.com/happyslapping.
Thoughts about how to tactically formulate the message from Alex to Hans and
from Hans to the people to whom the email shall be forwarded. He changes the
content back-and-forth. The goal is to keep it easy and simple but to add a
high level of ambiguity. This would lead to various possibilities of perception
(not only either believe the story or not, it would lift up the story to a
level where the story becomes a story because it is a story, a fast-selling
item so to say). Hans is nervous as always at the dawn of such an action.
Lizvlx is sceptical. She believes that if the story breaks early enough, police
might retaliate against demonstrators in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Lizvlx went over the
story (Emails & Concept) to cross-check it.
Current Statistics for Action
Web-Sites/Forums/Newsgroups
10
Mailinglists 25
VIPs German 19
VIPs English 23
Mailinglist
UBERMORGEN.COM 886 Email-Addresses
(Journalists, Artists, Curators, Nerds)
Blogger Emails German 20
Blogger Emails English 33
German Mass Media Channels
(Spiegel, Bild, Zeit, etc.): 12
Reference Material
1. Mai Kreuzberg
http://ainfos.de/downloads/videos/%5Bainfos%5Datr-live.mpg
Happy Slapper slapped
http://ponderance.blogspot.com/2006/04/happy-slapper-slapped.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2137321,00.html
Fussball-action
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UWqu1koOckU
berlin-demo-action
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qWPu_SfC8Lg
stuttgart demo (not really
good..)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pWuEBr1ZoEc
GSG9
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6twy2FQDthI
1. Mai in Kreuzberg
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erster_Mai_in_Kreuzberg
The Easter Bunny hates you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyDHyyB3TRs
01 May 2006
15:30h Hans called Alister to
check when movie will arrive. Alister was just working on formatting the piece.
15:54 h concept work-over by Hans. 16:21h Lizvlx adds a layer of ambiguity to
the Email by including a declaration of Art into the forwarded message. The
concept is now to send the found footage as found footage and to declare it a
UBERMORGEN.COM art piece:
Email - Version 1.1
Subject: police officer
killed in Berlin?
I got this video from a
berlin woman.
Really R-rated material...
I linked it from our server
and uploaded it on youtube.com
http://www.foriginal.com/happyslapping/
conceptual mms peer-to-peer
street art. I hereby declare this found footage (happyslapping video) to be an
actionist UBERMORGEN.COM art piece named ãMayday 2006Ò... a physical
manifestation that is to be viewed as a document of the art.
Hans-
17:10h, Hans changes the
action title: ãMayday 2006Ò into ãForiginal Media Hack no. 1, Web 2.0Ò, 2006
after reading ãKonzeptuelle Kunst und Software
ArtÒhttp://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKS.html
22:53 The Video has not
arrived yet, we still wait for violence and action in Berlin (we monitor blogs
and mass media channels), some water was used in berlin to hold back demonstrators,
in leipzig and rostock heavy troubles are on their way, some kinda riots.
22:55h Stefan Eipeltauer arrived. We check the Newspapers again for riot-news
in germany... 23:23h, the first video-clip arrives, it is a real problem.. way
too dark, it is impossible to see anything (the police officer can be
recognized for about 1 second right in the beginning). What can we do? We wait
for more material to come in and maybe we can build a useful clip tonite,
otherwise the action can not be carried on. Stefan is collecting blog-emails in
germany... Alister Mazzotti sends a couple of other clips, we try to make them
brighter (the hard beating scenes are all way too dark), difficult, the
material is in no way what hans expected and he believes it will be hard to
convince anybody, and especially he sees it as problem of quality control.
23:56 Alister sends more material, this time gladly we there is very good
stuff. Now Stefan, Hans and lizvlx start to edit the movie slightly (put sound
from another sequence in Ð especially at the very end of the movie). Stefan
puts it togehter and renders versions in .mov format. Hans and Liz make a last
workover on the emails.
02 May 2006
02:13 upload video to
youtube.com:
Movie description: ãA group of people brutally beat up a cop during the riots in berlin-kreuzberg, 1st of may 2006. Filmed with a mobile phone (b. alex, berlin, alex10969@gmail.com). UBERMORGEN.COM declares declare this found footage video to be an actionist UBERMORGEN.COM art piece namedãForiginal Media Hack no. 1, Web 2.0". a physical manifestation that is to be viewed as a document of the art.Ò
02:23 Compilation of Emails,
Hans sends Email to himself from Alex Gmail-Account with the movie ãmayday.movÒ
attached, then edits this (forward) and puts the UBERMORGEN.com Statement into the mail. Now this email
is tested to different email-accounts (ubermorgen@gmx.net,
stefan, hans, alex10969@gmail.com).
Everyhting roger:
German Version:
Subject: Polizist in Berlin
gekillt?
Wir erklaeren dieses
found footage Video hiermit zu einem
aktionistischen
UBERMORGEN.COM Kunstwerk namens
ãForiginal Media Hack no.
1, Web 2.0Ò. Die Idee wird zur
Maschine, die die Kunst
erzeugt.
Videolink:
http://www.foriginal.com/no1
//Media Hack Distributor
Repeat
{
follow link
watch video
forward to another friend
}
hans-
--
Hans Bernhard
UBERMORGEN.COM
Von: "Barbara
Alex" <alex10969@gmail.com>
Datum: 1. Mai 2006
22:42:54 GMT+02:00
An: hans@ubermorgen.com
Betreff: Bullen-Klatschen
in Kreuzberg
Hallo Hans!
Am 1. Mai nachmittags in
Kreuzberg: Ich bin in den Hinterhof rein, da
war ein Polizeiauto und
dann die 4 Typen die den Bullen ins Haus
schleppten, und dort
isses voll abgegangen. Wie ich mit dem Handy
weitergefilmte sind die
nur noch krasser draufgekommen. Die haben den
echt fertig gemacht,
weiss nicht, was dann noch los war, als ein
anderer Bulle auftauchte
bin ich abgehauen
TschŸss
B. Alex
<Mayday.mov>
English Version:
Subject: Police officer
killed in Berlin?
We hereby declare this
found footage video to be an
actionist UBERMORGEN.COM
art piece named
ãForiginal Media Hack no.
1, Web 2.0Ò. a physical
manifestation that is to
be viewed as a document of the art.
Videolink:
http://www.foriginal.com/no1
//Media Hack Distributor
Repeat
{
follow link
watch video
forward to another friend
}
Hans-
--
Hans Bernhard
UBERMORGEN.COM
Am 02.05.2006 um 01:43
schrieb Barbara Alex:
Von: "Barbara
Alex" <alex10969@gmail.com>
Datum: 1. Mai 2006
22:42:54 GMT+02:00
An: hans@ubermorgen.com
Betreff: copkiller
Dear Hans
I ran into this brutal
beating up of a cop during the 1st of may
demonstrations in
berlin-kreuzberg, i was walking into a backyard and
there they were, 4 guys
attacking, beating up this officer... after i
started filming with my
mobile the guys started to hit more brutally.
dunno if this guy ever
gets up again, they really beat the shit out of
him. While filming
another cop turned up and i ran away.
B. Alex
<Mayday.mov>
02:24 Mayday.mov uploaded
onto video.google.com (same description as on youtube.com, see above), Channel:
News. 02:27 Cross checking concept-paper and notes while stefan is still
collecting german blog-email addresses and rendering the Web-Version 640x480 for
our server.
02:38 Release: Sent to
Nettime, Rohrpost, Syndicate, Thingist, Rhizome Raw, empyre and about 10 more
Mailinglists. We setup the video on our server too, as a fall back method in
case youtube.com and video.google.com kick-out the video, then we can change
the foriginal.com/no1 link to http://www.foriginal.com/no1/video/Mayday_640x480.mov
03:34 Hans sent the Emails to
Friends (English and German), to Blogs/Journalists and to VIPs. Stefan
submitted the story to Slashdot and works on Google Groups right now (random
submitting of the story to related forums).
03:52 Email in german and in
english sent to 886 UBERMORGEN.COM email addresses.
04:44 Stefan spammed the
Google Groups, Hans sent out the last Mailinglist mails. The first feedback
came in from Indymedia:
From:
Alster <alster@indymedia.org>
Date:
May 2, 2006 4:31 AM
Subject:
Re: [Imc-germany] Polizist in Berlin gekillt?
To:
imc-germany@lists.indymedia.org
Cc:
Barbara Alex <alex10969@gmail.com>
-----BEGIN
PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash:
SHA1
Barbara
Alex wrote:
Am
1. Mai nachmittags in Kreuzberg: Ich bin in den Hinterhof rein, da
war
ein Polizeiauto und dann die 4 Typen die den Bullen ins Haus
schleppten,
und dort isses voll abgegangen. Wie ich mit dem Handy
weitergefilmte
sind die nur noch krasser draufgekommen. Die haben den
echt
fertig gemacht, weiss nicht, was dann noch los war, als ein
anderer
Bulle auftauchte bin ich abgehauen
TschŸss
B.
Alex
Videolink:
Das
mag jetzt sehr belehrend klingen, ist aber vielleicht ein guter Tipp
fŸr
Leute die gerne mal eben Klicken...
Bitte
denkt dran, dass Eure IPs + Infos Ÿber euren Browser etc. an den
Server
www.foriginal.com gehen, wenn ihr obige
URL anklickt. Im
ungŸnstigsten
Fall kann sich hinter sowas auch ein Webbrowser-Exploit
befinden,
der dann z.B. nen Keylogger oder ein HintertŸrchen auf dem
Rechner
installiert. Das war zumindest eben aber nicht der Fall.
Trotzdem
ist's immer gut sich erst zu informieren wer denn hier was
schreibt.
Der
Link ist eine Weiterleitung auf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wz5b_QQ7-E
Wer
sich also nicht beherrschen kann, guckt am besten gleich darauf.
Dort
werden zwar wahrscheinlich auch IPs gespeichert, aber die sind dem
Initiator
obiger Email dann vermutlich nicht zugŠngig.
Ein
paar Infos zu den Betreibern der obigen Domain folgen.
Auszug
aus dem Quellcode der Weiterleitung:
<title>Foriginal
Media Hack no. 1, Web 2.0, UBERMORGEN.COM</title>
Links
dazu:
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/8/8654/1.html
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/kuenstler/ubermorgen.com/biografie/
http://web2.cylex.de/firma-home/ubermorgen-com-2350108.html
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/werke/vote-auction/
foriginal
ist demnach ein Kunstprojekt, das Fake (fact) und Realita
(original)
vermischt. In welche Kategorie obiges Video gehšrt kann ja
wer
mag selbst entscheiden.
Sorry
falls ich grad ein Kunstprojekt sabotiert hab. FrŸher Aufstehen
macht
glŸcklich und erfolgreich (sagt meine Mutti). ;-)
Alster
-
--
GPG
key
http://keys.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/lookup?op=get&search=05059C17
-----END
PGP SIGNATURE-----
04:55 Hans finishes up, it
was a rough day (Police at home because of a ex-roommate not wanting to leave
the appartement, and a nice and easy day meeting with Yukiko, Judith and Georg
at Oswald&Kalb Restaurant). Final workover the current conceptual side of
the project/action:
Concept:
Pure Media Hacking: No ethics, no content, no message. With the action
ãMayday 2006Ò we follow a simple instruction on how to infiltrate mass media
with low-tech instruments (email, mobile-phones, web/blog) and ambiguous data.
ãMayday 2006Ò is a clean&simple execution and broad experiment within this
conceptual setting. UBERMORGEN.COM
specializes in Media Hacking. Their portfolio includes big time actions
such as ãVote-AuctionÒ and the ãdigital hijackÒ by etoy. The product of such
actions is the documentation (emails, logfiles, websites, press- and
blog-features). UBERMORGEN.COM captures this self-inflicted mass media storm by
digitally manipulating images and texts and rerouting them back into the mass
media; and by physically transforming data into foriginal objects (i.e.
Paintings, Sculptures, Drawings, Installations).
12:58 Hans is checking
youtube.com (video) for number of Views: 718 and Comments). Barbara Alex, the
drama marketing character received an warning email:
fipi <filmpirat@gmx.net>
to me, 10:23 am
ich mšchte dich darauf
hinweisen, dass die polizei die nŠchsten tage
hšchstwahrscheinlich eine
hausdurchsuchung bei dir machen wird.
mfg
another reaction and reply
(in germanJ
johnny,
Am 02.05.2006 um 13:30
schrieb Johnny Haeusler:
> Hans,
ganz im Ernst: Das ist widerlich.
>
> Was
ist an einem zusammengeschlagenen Mensch und im Titel der Mail gar implizierten
Mord bitte Kunst?
es geht primaer um die
deklaration. ich nehme das
material und deklariere
es als kunst, ich schleuse
es in den kunstbetrieb
ein und dadurch wird es
zur kunst.
und vieleicht hilft
dieser aspekt:
wenn ich jetzt zum
beispiel unsere aktion mit dem
taeglichen news-geschaeft
vergleiche, ist es
reflexiv und bearbeitet
gewalt von einem anderen
viewpoint aus, entgegen
den stereotypen des
taeglichen
nachrichtengeschaefts.
gruss
hans-
13:47 Hans receives some
emails of people saying that the link http://www.foriginal.com/no1
is not working, from his machine there seems to be no problem with the link.
Feedbacks:
http://bram.org/beinghuman/poll/hans/violence.php
16:07 Hans is emailing mainly
with Bloggers to answer their questions to the action, here an example:
Von: Hans
Bernhard <hans@ubermorgen.com>
Datum: 2. Mai 2006 15:58:43 GMT+02:00
An: "Steve
Hall" <steve at adrants Ð dot - com>
Betreff: Re: [Contact from Adrants] Police Officer killed in
Berlin?
hi steve
thanks for your Qs, its not to advertise the UBERMORGEN.COM
web-site but to further develop the art brand UBERMORGEN.COM.
i dont know wheter the footage is real or not, we received it
from
a woman in berlin... we use the material to create a shock in
the
users head, then we can input the message (or advertisment we
want), in this case, because its conceptual, because its art,
we
only communicate the UBERMORGEN.COM brand and nothing
else (no political, no commercial message).
i dont really know what the voice says at the end.. i
understand
something like "lets get out of here" (its in german,
i think its a
womens voice.. possibly the one of the one who shot the film
with her mobile phone..)
hope this answers your Qs
kind regards
hans-
Am 02.05.2006 um 15:51 schrieb Steve Hall:
Well I guess it is but calling a beating "art" is
weird...assuming the
beating is actually real. Is it? I'm doubting it because you
say "shock
marketing." What exactly are you marketing? The
UBERMORGEN site? And, what
is being said at the end of the video? It sounds like a
child's voice. And,
what's the message?
Call me a dim wit but I'm not an artist:-)
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: Hans Bernhard [mailto:hans@ubermorgen.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 5:48 AM
To: Steve Hall
Subject: Re: [Contact from Adrants] Police Officer killed in
Berlin?
hi steve
this is a conceptual art piece by UBERMORGEN.COM using a
broad range of viral marketing strategies (i.e.
shock marketing) to distribute the message and advertise the
found footage video from berlin.
we thought this might be interesting for you..
hans-
Am 02.05.2006 um 14:27 schrieb Steve Hall:
OK...exactly
what is this and why would it be relevant to me?
Steve
16:11 Hans thinks about how to resolve the action. We might label the action as a guerilla-marketing action from Adidas, dealing with the Football World Championship in Germany summer 2006. We should wait 2-3 days to see how the story develops Ð wheter it gets viral or if it stays dry. 16:41 embedded the Media hack no.1 Videolink into UBERMORGEN.COM web-site: index.html, news.html and bookmarks.html. When is the right time to publish the video-story as staged and pushing the ambiguity of the whole thing to a new level. Hans just finished preparing the Video-DVD with the
16:43 Just saw 10 seconds of
our Video on CNN International along with a news-story about the the riots in
Berlin-Kreuzberg. How did the material get to them? I have to screen
news.google.com and digerati.com for stories about the media hack.
03 May 2006
00:55
youtube.com Video Views: 1,283
17:37 Now it becomes very
obvious that the Mayday 2006 Email
was not published in a variety of moderated mailinglists (censored),
Eicp, Netbehaviour. Interestingly it was published through Nettime. Here an
censorship info-email from italy:
Von: contact at p.info
Betreff: Re: pls fwd.. Police officer killed in Berlin?
Datum: 3. Mai 2006 16:28:21 GMT+02:00
An: hans@ubermorgen.com
hi hans,
i have forwarded at some mailing list and italian friends
but often it has been censored, just in this list it's go::
neurogreen@liste.rekombinant.org
that anyway it's the most italian party about precarity
and mayday.. it's the party of Alex Foti, the inventor of
precarity issue in italy and in europe.
you should post it in some indymedia node..
good lucky
p.