A year ago, we were invited
by the Swiss embassy in Berlin
to present our art projects.
We are used to invitations,
but this invitation really thrilled us.
The Swiss embassy in Berlin is special.
It is the only old building
in the government district
that was not destroyed
during the Second World War,
and it sits right next
to the Federal Chancellery.
No one is closer to Chancellor Merkel
than the Swiss diplomats.
(Laughter)
The government district in Berlin
also contains the Reichstag --
Germany's parliament --
and the Brandenburg Gate,
and right next to the gate
there are other embassies,
in particular the U.S.
and the British embassy.
Although Germany
is an advanced democracy,
citizens are limited
in their constitutional rights
in its government district.
The right of assembly and the right
to demonstrate are restricted there.
And this is interesting
from an artistic point of view.
The opportunities to exercise
participation and to express oneself
are always bound to a certain order
and always subject
to a specific regulation.
With an awareness
of the dependencies of these regulations,
we can gain a new perspective.
The given terms and conditions
shape our perception, our actions,
and our lives.
And this is crucial in another context.
Over the last couple of years,
we learned that from the roofs
of the U.S. and the British embassy,
the secret services have been listening
to the entire district,
including the mobile phone
of Angela Merkel.
The antennas of the British GCHQ
are hidden in the white cylindrical ??.
By the listening post of the American NSA
is covered by radio transparent screens.
But how to address these hidden
and disguised forces?
With my colleague Christoph Wachter,
we accepted the invitation
of the Swiss embassy,
and we used this opportunity
to exploit the specific situation.
If people are spying on us,
it stands to reason
that they have to listen
to what we are saying.
(Laughter)
On the roof of the Swiss embassy,
we installed a series of antennas.
They weren't as sophisticated as those
used by the Americans and the British.
They were makeshift ????? antennas,
not camouflaged but totally obvious
and visible.
The Academy of Arts joined the project,
and so we built another large antenna
on their rooftop
exactly between the listening posts
of the NSA and the GCHQ.
(Laughter)
Never have we been observed in such detail
while building an art installation.
A helicopter circled over our heads
with a camera registering
each and every move we made,
and on the roof of the U.S. embassy,
security officers patrolled.
Although the government district
is governed by a strict police order,
there are no specific laws
relating to digital communication.
Our installation
was therefore perfectly legal,
and the Swiss Ambassador
informed Chancellor Merkel about it.
We named the project
"Can You Hear Me?"
(Laughter)
The antennas created an open
and free wifi communication network
in which anyone who wanted to
would be able to participate
using any wifi-enabled device
without any hindrance,
and be able to send messages
to those listening
on the frequencies
that were being intercepted.
Text messages, voice chat, file sharing:
anything could be sent anonymously.
And people did communicate.
Over 15,000 messages were sent.
Here are some examples.
"Hello world, hello Berlin,
hello NSA, hello GCHQ."
"NSA Agents, Do the Right Thing!
Blow the whistle!"
"This is the NSA. In God we trust.
All others we track!!!!!"
(Laughter)
"#@nonymous is watching #NSA #GCHQ -
we are part of our organizations.
#expect us. We will #shutdown"
"This is the NSA's Achilles heel.
Open Networks."
"Agents, what twisted story of yourself
will you tell your grandchildren?"
"@NSA My neighbors are noisy.
Please send a drone strike."
(Laughter)
"Make Love, Not cyberwar."
We invited the embassies
and the government departments
to participate in the open network too,
and to our surprise, they did.
Files appeared on the network,
including classified documents
leaked from the parliamentary
investigation commission,
which highlights that the free exchange
and discussion of vital information
is starting to become difficult,
even for members of a parliament.
We also organized guided tours
to experience and sound out
the power constellations on site.
The tours visited the restricted zones
around the embassies,
and we discussed the potential
and the highlights of communication.
If we become aware of the constellation,
the terms and conditions of communication,
it not only broadens our horizon,
it allows us to look behind
the regulations that limit our worldview,
our specific, social, political,
or aesthetic conventions.
Let's look at an actual example.
The fate of people living
in the makeshift settlements
on the outskirts of Paris
is hidden and faded from view.
It's a vicious circle.
It's not poverty, not racism,
not exclusion that are new.
What is new is how
these realities are hidden
and how people are made invisible
in an age of actually global
and overwhelming
communication and exchange.
Such makeshift settlements
are considered illegal,
and therefore those living in them
don't have a chance
of making their voices heard.
On the contrary, every time they appear,
every time they risk becoming visible,
merely gives grounds
for further persecution,
expulsion, and suppression.
What interested us is how we could
come to know this hidden side.
We were searching for an interface,
and we found one.
It's not a digital interface,
but a physical one: it's a hotel.
We named the project Hotel Gelem.
Together with Roma families,
we created several Hotel Gelems in Europe,
for example in Freiburg in Germany,
in Montreuil near Paris,
and also in the Balkans.
These are real hotels.
People can stay there.
But they aren't a commercial enterprise.
They are a symbol.
You can go online
and ask for a personal invitation
to come and live for a few days
in the Hotel Gelem, in their homes.
eating, working, and living
with the Roma families.
Here, the Roma families
are not the travelers,
the visitors are.
Here, the Roma families
are not a minority,
the visitors are.
The point is not to make judgments
but rather to find out about the context
that determines these disparate
and seemingly insurmountable
contradictions.
In the world of globalization,
the continents are drifting
closer to each other.
Cultures, goods, and people
are in permanent exchange,
but at the same time, the gap
between the world of the privileged
and the world of the excluded is growing.
We were recently in Australia.
For us, it was no problem
to enter the country.
We have European passports,
visas, and air tickets.
But asylum seekers who arrive
by boat in Australia
are deported or taken to prison.
The interception of the boats
and the disappearance of the people
into the detention system
are veiled by the Australian authorities.