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:

http://www.foriginal.com/no1

 

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.