Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction:
30c3 (play it.)
Those of you in the audience who couldn’t attend last year, there was
a video installation that ran on multiple screens - it showed the 30
year history of the chaos computer club.
The beginning - the 80ties, then the 90ties, when the internet became
accessible for everyone, then then the years after and now we’re
here… amazing! :)
Thank you all for coming and thanks to the CCC for this invitation!
When I received it I have to admit it kind of blew me away!
I assume most of you in the audience do not know who I am, and
there is probably also a percentage of people here who want to forget
that they’ve ever heard a song of :)
In the late 90ties the Beastie Boys put out an album by Atari Teenage
Riot called “Burn Berlin Burn”, it went gold. The international
release of “Burn Berlin Burn” was a slightly different version called
“Delete Yourself”.
The last 20 years of my life were an absolute ride!
We try to stay off the grid as much as we can, because we know about
the dangers of the music industry and its hype machine. It can
swallow you and then it spits you out. And most artists can’t get back
up again.
When I spoke to Thorsten and Erdgeist, and a little bit to Frank, they
told me that they wanted me to speak about my approach to music,
the political ideas and methods behind it because they are very
unusual and have a lot in common with hacking.
Okay let me pause here… you get the idea.. this was in 1999 - the
video for the song “Revolution Action” was directed by Andrea
Giacobbe. It opens with a shot of Wall Street and then the company
faces a little…let’s call it technical problem.
This was in 1999, MTV UK banned it right away, but MTV did show
it in many other countries.
Over the past ten years the internet spread this and it’s probably
where most people saw it.
It has a fast and very tight MIDI attack, and every year that passes it
becomes a new challenge to drive this little thing in the red. And it’s
cheap at this point. 20 bucks maybe…something like that.
When we started in 1992 the far right and Neo-Nazi scene in Europe
was on the rise, especially in Eastern Germany. We knew we had to
fight against that. So we decided to make electronic music on an Atari
computer based on Burroughs’ text. Sampling technology was
affordable at this point and we created these tracks that were almost
collage like…
Back then the music scenes were pretty divided into groups like
punks, ravers, metal fans, the Hip Hop scene and so on… Our idea
was to tear down those barriers and unite people from all genres for
the politics. Fashion, race, sex, social background and so on shouldn’t
exclude anyone from joining.
We have all witnessed this many times. You hear a Christmas song,
your brain switches immediately. Or when soldiers hear the national
anthem, their body language changes very fast. Weddings, funerals,
supermarkets, rock concerts, raves, birthdays and so on… Be aware
of those, become immune to them, and you are in less danger of being
tricked into something.
This is what an Atari Teenage Riot show looks like (Fusion video,
stage invasion)
This footage was filmed by visual artist Zan Lyons who was there to
take some photos first but then switched to filming when the crowd
start tearing down the barriers. This was filmed at Fusion festival near
Berlin. A complete corporate sponsor free music festival that we
played in 2010.
These things still exist, support them, go there.
Last August we premiered this at the EFF event at Defcon in Las
Vegas in the US.
(Modern Liars)
Modern Liars love machines, they get inspired and steal your dreams.
The price of victory was never higher. (image)
Okay, people have friends who maybe do something but we can agree
that since that Metallica Napster fight, musicians and artists don’t
really want to get involved. But I think they should. Often people ask
why isn’t there more protest music?
You can never have the three… it’s just reality of the creative
process - now think about what happens , and make no mistake about
it
it is happening now, since a few years , so what happens when you try
to do it with zero cost…
yes, you are freezing culture.
Jaron Lanier often gets criticised for his view and analysis of the
situation
but he is right and it’s a fact.
“But wait , Alec, we rode horses and then cars were invented and
everything got improved…”
That comparison does not work here. And you can identify a con man
when you hear him argue this way.
If this was true, then the work of the greatest music composers in
history would
be shared the most, people would understand complex music more
and faster.
The reality is that young people today only hear something like
classical music in a soundtrack for Transformers instead of learning
and understanding it via the internet.
Even popular mainstream artists who make pop music can only
survive if they enter into, what in my opinion are, very compromising
corporate sponsoring deals. Independent artists are doing other jobs
by now and can’t take risks. In this system it gets harder and harder to
speak out.
Because once you enter these agreements your mind starts to think in
a different way. Think of a politician who knows he/she took bribes
but acts in the media like he/she was ‘employed by the people’, and
works ‘for the people’.
Maybe it was for a little while but things got out of balance again. It’s
not so easy to point out the gatekeepers anymore in this more
complex world, but they are out there and they are very busy.
Empathy is the key word here. For most people using the internet
now means defending your own world view, staying strong while
standing in a shit storm, reading articles or comments that confirm
your opinion. Empathy is something that is hard to learn or to find
right now.
Back to information… It’s well known that Mozart embedded secret
codes in his compositions that would link to the Free Masons. When I
wrote the little anniversary piece for last year’s opening video I knew
I had to start with three C’s and it was the first time ever for me I did
that.
Usually children songs or Christmas songs start like that. A taboo for
me so that was a tough equation for me to solve: How can I start like
that and still make it ‘cool’;)
We all know that when different musicians play from the same note
sheet,
they will sound different. The better they are the more their own
personality shines through.
We can later analyse these differences, but what we can’t do is to
predict those micro decisions that an artist will make when creativity
is happening. The sheer number of factors that can influence the
process means the outcome is always different.
Yes you can copy someone else, that is happening all the time but
every once in a while there are artists, people who do something so
special that they seize the time.
“But Alec, every creative act is just a copy of a copy. Authors just
write down what other people say, painters just paint what the world
shows them.”
We all have heard this idea in all its variations before. Especially
when tech giants want to justify monetisation of their users creations,
monetisation that just takes from their users without giving anything
back. Instagram is a good example for that. I keep hearing this
simplification again and again and it is dangerous. Why?
The fight for privacy, the fight against surveillance and the fight for
creators’ rights have a lot in common, they are linked, they are
connected. Authorities, corporate or political, who invade your
privacy are also the ones who seize the products of your mind. That’s
why open source and creative commons are great because those who
participate in those adventures do it with consent!
This system favours those who come up with the loudest and most
conformist content fast.
We can all sit back and enjoy it when things get even more absurd but
deep down we all know that it is all very short sighted and goes
against the hacker ethics.
“On the internet you can be anything you want. It’s strange that so
many people choose to be stupid.”
Or in this case “On the internet you can consume anything you want.
It’s strange that so many people choose to consume something
stupid.”
Are too many people becoming passive consumers again? Like our
parents generation? High approval ratings prove that content is of
high quality? If we are honest than then we must admit that most
people make a judgement by looking at stats and comments before
they have read the article, watched the video, listened to the song…
I am saying this to you because at this point one could argue that we
are all losing the war here, even though some smaller battles are won
here and there every once in a while, but the bigger picture?
It was a reality shock, some even compared it to events like 911; there
is the time before and the time after you got hit with the news.
Everyone wanted to celebrate the 30 years of this great club and then
this… I admit I was depressed on a constant basis since the summer
of 2013.
What depressed me most wasn’t the magnitude of the surveillance, it
was how I witnessed a young generation who which was so excited
about democracy and the possibilities to improve it with technology, I
witnessed how the spirit of that generation was crushed within a few
weeks.
In the first hours of when the Snowden story broke I tweeted this:
You lose trust in people you love, every conversation becomes half
lie/ half truth. It becomes part of EVERYBODY’s lives. Nobody is an
exception. Ignore music, games or whatever you do right now and
research the topic. Anything you have said in the past can be twisted
against you in a surveillance state. Made the wrong joke in ‘private’?
You are constantly being blackmailed by those in ‘charge’. History
has shown that these types of societies never last, they get so
corrupted with lies that many people will suffer in the end.
Everybody loses.”
That was in the summer of 2013.
Even the Green Party contacted me, asked if I could see myself
somehow working with them. I said no… and actually let me make
one thing very clear right now, if you are a politician and you wonder
why people are disillusioned with politics and don’t vote… Yes, we
don’t trust you anymore.
And in these situations I can’t thank everyone in the CCC enough for
their hard work, commitment and passion.
Let me say this as a musician, and I speak for many when I say this:
People like us, we don’t understand every technical aspect of this
stuff but what the CCC does sends a strong message and gives people
hope out there! And that is very important!
It’s a great documentary and I think everyone here kinda knows that
but I want to point something else out today. When I sat in this
packed cinema next to Frank Rieger and all the other guys and the
room was filled with amazing people who deeply cared about this
topic and then Laura spoke to the audience and so on…
I was so glad that I did not watch a crappy stream online, alone, in my
cubicle…
It says “Anti Tepco Riot” - if you are an artist, be open and let others
develop your art further.
It’s ok to let go sometimes, just create new stuff and move forward.
——————-
In 2014 more and more artists started to speak out against streaming
services like Spotify.
Usually it is about royalties - I will not go into this now, it is clear to
everyone who can do basic math that these services are not the future
business models, because they don’t put any money back into the
hands of the musicians. These systems can’t be maintained.
For many it’s still the blue print of what can be done with a computer
… when it comes to pushing the limits of sound, connecting political
lyrics with very physical music. Songs from it still get played at
protests around the world. Influential music blog Stereogum rates it at
number 9 of the loudest albums ever, to put this in perspective for
you: ACDC is at 19, Aphex Twin at 16, Motorhead at 13.
It would have been easy to contact us, maybe even get us in the class
room and clear this up. But no.
Ok how Germany deals with anti-fascist art is one thing but now it
gets better. Years pass, the internet, thanks to Pirate Bay and the fans
people can access the music!
I made my peace with this whole thing and moved on. Ten years
passed… when suddenly we receive notice from Spotify that we have
been flagged. Because they were notified by the Bundesprüfstelle. We
were given an ultimatum: We remove this album from Spotify or the
whole catalogue of the whole label will get removed.
We are not talking about Germany, we are talking worldwide and all
other artists on the label!
So my guys from the label put a call in, hoping to get to talk to a
human being so we can clear this up. The woman on the other end is
looking at her screen explains that “this happens to bands who use
Nazi references in their songs.” - So my label manager explains that
this artist Atari Teenage Riot has not only one Anti-Nazi song, all the
music for over 2 decades was written to fight Neo-Nazi ideology and
he offered to send in evidence from song lyrics to articles from the
press.
So the Spotify woman’s answer to this was: “Nazi or Anti-Nazi, it
doesn’t matter you’re being flagged. We won’t change anything.”
We decided to remove it for now because we didn’t want the other
artists to suffer. We are still looking into taking legal action.
So whenever marketing people try to convince you that you should
have one service host all content for you, in the cloud, convenient,
keep this in mind. Out of sight, out of mind.
Mistrust authority, promote decentralisation.
—————-
I think when we speak about streaming services and how much they
suck and will hopefully be seen as what they are in a few years if they
don’t change:
A destructive force that doesn’t help creatives, only exploits them for
short term profits.
We must mention that the guys at Bittorrent are doing the right thing.
I really think that Bittorrent is moving into a direction that gives the
creatives control, let’s them decide.
On top of that they are great guys. If you love music and everything
that comes with it, the videos, lyric sheets, photos - support this
service, use it, help build a better system.
We have started to put some stuff up there, it’s fun again, makes me
want to make music !
There is the right kind of thinking behind it.
———————————————-
Riot sounds produce riots - play them in a riot situation and the police
will come you’ll see…
It’s important to mention that this footage aired the day after on some
music channels on tv back then. German equivalent to MTV Viva
showed parts of it in the ‘news’ program, screenshots were printed
with the story in the international music press. But also this footage
was used in court as evidence to prove how the police started the
violence. I remember at one point tear gas flying everywhere, it
makes it hard to use your voice to even speak. Then the truck stopped
and we wondered “Why are we not moving anymore?” We
checked… the driver had escaped, took the keys with him.
You don’t see this part in the video because the guy who filmed it
video maker Philipp Virus stopped filming for a bit because the police
wanted to confiscate his camera and tapes. In all the chaos he just
said to them “No it’s ok I work for ARD” which is a major public
television network , similar to the BBC, in Germany. Police nodded
and let him continue. It was this classic Star Wars moment “These
aren’t the droids you are looking for”.
A few weeks later the first week of May the story broke “Atari
Teenage Riot Beef With Apple Over Riot-Inducing iPhone App” -
many websites ran it, even print.
But let me read you what Pitchfork, influential music blog wrote:
————
algorithmic cruelty
There is something else I want to bring up. I keep noticing that many
are not aware of this reality.
You don’t believe me? Look at the movie industry. The same thing is
happening there. Mid budget films are not getting financed, and if
they get made, they have trouble finding distribution. Now why is this
a problem? It is a problem because we need diversity, and different
voices to be heard, what we don’t need is a handful of super hero
movies that do well and thousands of DIY crap films that nobody
wants to watch.
The same goes for music. And journalists will tell you the same thing
about the press. Investigative journalism? There is less money for it
now. This is because the architecture is wrong. I think we, who
favoured free content for over a decade now, must admit that this
system of making money with ads, trying to generate large quantities
of clicks, could lead us into a disaster here. When a journalist asks me
in an interview in which I want to bring the topic of online
surveillance to the music scene, if I could say something about Miley
Cyrus so more people will find the article through Google, there is
something going very wrong here!
It is my generation and the one that came before that who created all
of this. And it is hopefully the next one, yes that’s you, who will get
us out of it. But you need to start questioning it!
Before this event I met with Erdgeist, really great guy! I mean really!
I wish there were people like him in the music industry, ok maybe I
have met already those who are the exception to the norm, but you
know what I mean… ;)
We spoke about how the older generation of hackers was much more
aware of philosophy, history and how they were into radical, often
utopian ideas. They spent more time thinking and less time clicking!
The world is split into two sides it seems: One sees the creative as a
slave to the audience, self-exploitation 24 hours a day… the other
sees the creative as the master of his audience, like they are an army
of slaves that have to pay and pay…
If you never saw it this way, go read the comments below music
videos on YouTube. Suddenly it all makes sense. By the way this is a
phenomenon that is part of our culture, we inherited that from the
times of the Cold War, when the battle between capitalism and
socialism, West and East was fought.
How the media reported on the latest hack of “Sony by North Korea”
couldn’t symbolise this better. Ask around in a few months - how will
people remember this story? Most will probably repeat the headlines
that were written to generate the most clicks, fast.
I do care a lot because there are real victims of this by now, Aaron
Swartz was one, the guys from Pirate Bay as well, but also thousands
of kids who have to work shitty jobs during their summer holidays to
pay a fine for downloading a top 40 pop song… But the victims are
also the musicians, independent film makers, photographers, authors,
designers, indie game developers and plenty more.
These are all not bullies or super greedy people, these are the minds
that we need right now!
For decades people believed that music and art were processed in the
right hemisphere of the human brain, while language and
mathematics were processed in the left hemisphere of the brain.