https:/.../30c3-5376-en-Do_You_Think_That_s_Funny__h264-hq.mp4

Herald: So the first speaker for this
conference is lizvlx. And she runs

ubermorgen.com and she is really
interested in software art, photography

and net art. And if you heard about Vote-
Auction that was her. This talk will be

about anti terrorist laws implications on
free thinking and art. Thank you very much

liz.
applause

lizvlx: Well hello, sorry that took a
little bit. I'm using the wrong software

apparently, its not Microsoft so I'm
really sorry. "Do you think that's funny"

that's the title of this talk because this
was a question we got asked quite a few

years ago by a reporter wanting to discuss
a project that we did and I thought it was

the stupidest question I have ever been
asked and I have loved it ever since

because obviously this shit is not funny
at all. So, yeah. Because it's about art-

practice under anti-terror laws. I'm not
going to give this theoretical talk now,

so you're fine it's about practice. I'm
gonna show you a set of projects and focus on

kind of the implications of anti-terror
laws on the project, on the production of

the project most and foremost and also
some of the projects obviously have been

produced before all these crazy ass laws
have come into effect. So let's just get

started. And of course in the end I'll be
doing a Q&A. So a short introduction. So

for us, I mean when I'm talking us means
ubermorgen.com so that's me and my partner

Hans. So we started in the 90s and in the
90s it was really great, I really loved it

because there was nothing happening on the
net really except for the crazy boring

shit and we all thought it was so cool. It
was just really nerdy but nothing else.

Obviously I started working in net-art, in
1995 about. And that was a really great

time because nobody cared what you did on
the net, not because there was no audience

there was a huge audience. But there was
no question about, because you know the

net was still not a dot com rearm so it
was fine, you could just do whatever you

wanted to... There's a little footnote
there because we did get, you know, a few

problems but it was nothing major. Also
because there was no laws in place it

really had an effect onto like European
citizen being kinda hassled by the CIA,

basically local police didn't really want
to help out the CIA at the time, so we

were fine at the time. So in the early
2000s dot com had totally run over the net

which is fine obviously but not only and
we had to really get used to lots of

people bugging us for doing what we did.
But it was just small stuff as you can

see, and especially the lawyers letters.
These were always very creative and always

a good basis for a new project I think.
But also at the time there were all these

people coming at you for doing projects
and its not necessary that you call them

art projects it could be anything really,
that is not commercial. Were you just go

like why shouldn't I do it. But all these
things that got thrown at you, were always

really valuable pieces of information on
how the system works. And you could work

with that. And you could work your way
around it, you sometimes may pay a small

legal fine or whatever, but you would be
fine. Obviously that was not true for our

Vote-Auction project which cost us
enormous amounts of money, but it was

worth it. So in about 2006 to 2008 I kind
of noticed, I started doing a project back

then which was called super-enhanced and I
very much noticed that I was paying more

and more attention to laws that were in
place, not that I was thinking that if I

do this project now I would get into
trouble a, b, c and d but it was in the

back of my head. Which is not really
helping when you're trying to freely

create a new project or a thinking space,
you know? As it is now I feel that all

these anti-terror-laws totally make us
come into this kind of cluster where we

start self-censoring ourselves. Most of
all, you see that when you're on Facebook.

And don't tell me you're not on Facebook,
obviously it's a bullshit platform but

still its really interesting. The same is
true for twitter. I mean how many times

will you say fuck on either of them.
You're not going to post that one picture

of that naked butt or the bare-breasted
lady or whatever, because you're like "ok

I have been using this account for a
really long time, I don't want to get

turned off now, because I'm using imagery
now that might be not legal in the

Facebook kind of sense". But this self
censorship is going on in your head. And

it happens online. But as long as it
happens online it would be kind of fine,

you know it's just Facebook. But this
creeps into offline life as well. I'm very

sure and I have noticed that with lots of
people that the conversations you will

have in real life will mirror the ones you
have online. Because you're getting used

to this kind of speak, this Facebook speak
or twitter speak. And it just censors out

lots of stuff. Our strategies in working
are mostly like affirmative. We're not the

ones that use critical approaches, because
most of the time that's very boring. But

we rather use affirmative techniques and
the other one, but then we figured we need

to come up with a new strategy. And that's
when we started to do secret projects,

because I was just getting really sick of
having this thought in my head all the

time of self-censorship and whatever. So
we just started developing projects

anonymously. But we can't publish them
under our own name which is kind of a bug

but that's the way it is. That's enough
for a little theory in the beginning and I

want to show you a little video of a
project that we did a few years ago and we

did this project because this is like one
more thing i think it is really important.

This is new speak, we all hear it all the
time. Like yesterday I read something on

the news, it talked about a dark figure of
badgers in the forest. I figured, how can

there be a dark figure of badgers in the
forest? Are these illegal badgers? Are

these criminal badgers now? And what I
heard also a few years ago, it was

Russian... deep sea... spider crabs that
were moving into Finnish you know sea

space? And I figured you know, what they
don't have any identity on them or what...

what's the problem? you know this, but
this new speak i mean obviously that's a

lot true for you know all the enemy
combatant bullshit and so on. But this

newspeak, it's really interesting if you
listen to it and it's a real problem if

you just go along with it because it
alters your speech it alters your mind. So

we did this project on oil and it's all
about this. I hope this is not too loud.

music starts: Seven Nation Army by The
White Stripesapplause Where's my

presentation? This video was based on a
marketing campaign by Diesel, it was

called "Be Stupid". laughs I don't want
to add to that, but I'm sure some of you

people in here have bought a Diesel
product. So be proud of yourself you are

officially stupid. I was asked to also
present you know some projects that some

of you might like really know but some of
them might not to give you more of a

context of our work. So I'm going to
present Vote Auction. Vote Auction was a

project we did in 2000 and we usually
produce seals for our projects, not logos

because we're surely not dot com. If we're
anything we're an authority, so we need a

seal, right? That gives you authority.
And, wait I need that. So it was in 2000,

it was a platform for buying and selling
you know votes for the presidential

election in 2000. Gore, yeah Gore against
Bush. You know the one that Bush didn't

win but took home anyways. You're laughing
it's sad isn't it, but then maybe I mean

so much good came out of it, so we should
be happy. It'd be a lot colder probably if

Gore had one, right? He's all into the
climate shit and so on. So that was the

website, we originally got it from this
American called James Baumgartner who was

an art student in the states, and he
started doing this as a thesis project.

But he got you know contacted by the FBI
and such pretty early on and he didn't

want to pursue the idea any more. And Art
Mark who is now Yesman by now and sucks

real bad now but was really good then um
brought him over to us and we took over

and made it a bit bigger I guess. And yeah
well basically you could just you know

sign up as a voter and just put your vote
on sale and as one would be interested in

buying a vote you'd only be able to buy
the votes from a you know from a whole

state to make it more easy. And the prices
of votes in different states varied a lot

obviously, we had enormous amounts of
subscribers. I don't know precisely

because we had a randomizing engine in the
back obviously. And um we got into serious

trouble obviously with this project with
any kind of governmental agency. Any OGA

in the states. And always made special
little websites for them with, you know

just IP filtering and they get their own
websites and laughter I remember also

the Germans were in there as well, I
remember Karlsruhe always contacted us on

I mean the server on a Wednesday at about
11. And always searched through the same

pages and it was really easy then I just,
you could just give them something they

really liked as a website and that's just
some DOS software that would download in

the background. And you know stuff like
that that really worked fine. I'm gonna

show you a little video again, because we
got like this feature on CNN for the

project, this is really bad quality
because it's from TV. I'm so sorry.

TV intro music
TV presenter: In just two weeks the

citizens of the United States will elect
their next commander-in-chief. But could

that decision be rerouted over the
internet? A website engineered halfway

around the world is offering to literally
buy your vote! Today on Burden of Proof:

Bidding for ballots. Democracy on the
block.

announcer: This is Burden of Proof.
lizvlx: Just need to interrupt here a few

times. So this was on prime time US CNN.
This was right in the midst of the

elections and we were really lucky that we
got so much news coverage. This was not

because we are so awesome and doing
projects, this was because we just touched

a topic that lots of journalists really
wanted to talk about, but they didn't have

a specific issue. But if you present them
with a specific issue they have something

to talk about. So they did. We got about
like I don't know how many people we

reached about like 200 to 400 million
people. This was like really all over the

place from, I don't know, you know, they
even discussed it in Russia in their

parliament and so on. And we got our you
know service hacked, and yeah Chan and

Reno who was then you know somebody was on
our... And we got sued by so many people

for either, you know, false promise,
consumerism laws, or you know election

fraud. I need to point out that obviously
it's perfectly legal to sell American

votes in Europe.
laughter and applause

But this is also why vote auction is a big
case in the - for lawyers all over the

place. This was one of the first cases
where people really noticed: Oh internet

and national law is just really bad
together, just don't mix, you know. And

you know, they served us court papers onto
our Nokia communicators. Like faxes, like

30 pages, which obviously doesn't fit on a
communicator. Or on the phone, you know. I

need to serve this to you which is an- it
was ridiculous. But still, I mean they

couldn't shut us down because we just had,
we obviously we were aware that if we kept

on doing this project we would get you
know, people and authority would be

getting more and more interested in us. So
we had just this you know- we bought new

domains because it turned up the one
domain, so we put in the new domain which

gives you a new news story. So that was
fine, in the end we were running on an IP

address but it was all out there so it was
fine because we had the CNN coverage so

there was no problem. So we had no terror
laws at the time so we were no terrorists,

we're just doing voter fraud, right? So
this is, I mean we're obviously not doing

it because we're just providing a
platform, I'm not responsible for any

user. That's what dot coms is. You know
and you got to bring democracy and

capitalism closer together, that's what we
were saying. Yeah wait, there I just see

where is, where's where is he... he yeah
that's him. That was one of our first

providers. TV presenter: Which along with
voteauction.com was named as a defendant

in a lawsuit in Chicago. In Los Angeles
we're joined by internet law professor

Stuart Beagle TV presenter 2: And in
Sacramento, California we're joined by...

lizvlx: He is an asshole.
TV presenter 2: William Woods, chief

counsel to the California secretary of
state, where I'm from. And here in

Washington, Melissa Stratton,
constitutional law expert.

lizvlx: That's my favorite picture. I mean
look at that, I mean for me that project

is also a very complicated way to produce
like a video art. You do this whole

project and then it gets filmed by CNN,
right? laughter and applause If you want

to see more of the video, pretty much all
the videos are available on vimeo. If you

go, you know look for the ubermorgen
channel. So because they'll go on for way

too long because it's 45 minutes and we
don't have that much time. Do dee do de

doo, more screenshots of the guys. Yeah
that's the lawsuits. laughter It's a

paper- I started doing paper sculptures
then at the time because what are you

supposed to do with it, right? And um,
it's very expensive you know. This is from

a show we just did at carol fletcher
gallery in you know London. You know,

Oxford Circus, high scale, good shit. But
obviously it's not so much fun at the time

sometimes. But because I come from a
lawyer's family I cannot be bothered

really. laughter
Now on to something completely different.

This is EKMRZ trilogy, it obviously means
e-commerce. I don't like vowels

apparently. And these are three projects.
It's called Google Will Eat Itself, Amazon

Noir, and The Sound of Ebay. Google Will
Eat Itself, maybe some of you know. That's

the seal again. Google release itself is
just a very easy scheme for, I don't know

a problematic network maybe. It's just,
it's all about, we just bought into we

just participated in the google ads
program and made money with that, and with

the money we made we bought Google shares.
Hence Google Will Eat Itself, right? And

we didn't do it on a huge big scale,
because we were not so interested in that

any more after doing stuff like vote
auction. So we just did this more as a

conceptual piece. I think at the scale
that we did it in uh it would have taken

us like something like 300 million years
to buy the whole of Google. But then it

gets, maybe it'll get like real cheap in
the meantime. So who knows, yeah? For this

project also still no terror laws, then
that it wouldn't really be covered by that

anyways. But of course nasty letters from
Google, and we got you know blocked on

Google which is great, you know? I once
got disqualified from a conference, that

was awesome. And then you know that one I
really like. But if you get a lawyer from

Google, a lawyer's letter from Google
that's fine because we all know you can't

talk to google, right? There's no phone
number, you know? You can have, you can

know someone who works at google. But
officially you can't talk to them. So

there's nothing they can do to you really
because they can only send letters, but

not react again because they don't want to
be bothered. So that's fine, so you can

just make a new story out of it. But we
closed the project. We made about I think

like 400˙000€ and it's still sitting
there. It's in a kind of a fund thing and

it's Google to the people. But it's not
doing anything, because money shouldn't be

doing anything. The next one was Amazon
Noir which was basically just using the

look inside the book function of Amazon to
download the whole books. Just search for

lots of terms and then recombine the book.
They look quite measly afterwards but it's

all about the content, who cares? And that
project got kind of interpreted as if we

were focusing on free books and all that
and information for all and we're not

interested in, we're not activists. I'm
maybe an actionist but I'm not an

activist. So I don't have a political
agenda. I don't say that this is good or

this is bad. I just might find some things
interesting. And so we sold the software

to Amazon because they didn't like it
obviously. So we sold this software to

Amazon in the end and made some money with
that. laughter and applause

And last one of that trilogy is called The
Sound of Ebay, and I just really wanted to

do a project with teletext imagery because
teletext is just so great. And my mom

still uses it and. But then my mom used to
be a programmer so that's, I guess that

explains it. So basically it just, this is
a lyrical project. It makes the music with

your user data. And I'm not gonna play the
music, but I'm gonna show the images

because i love them so much. I mean it's
just the best parts of teletext obviously,

I got there's like this, there's one
person who won't talk to me anymore after

I've done that because she thinks it's
porn. laughter

It's really pixels I mean come on. If you
see porn in this shit you're sick. I mean

seriously.
laughter and applause

I'm gonna jump through that because
there's not enough time I think. Oh maybe,

no we got... There's another set of
projects I... we did. This is actually the

ones I like doing most because this is
where I get to do some coding. I love

doing coding in Perl and I will never code
in anything else I think. And we don't

need that ruby shit. And basically this is
also yeah this is the... from IP-NIC. We

learned, with vote auction we learned how
important the seal is, right? Because we

got all these legal letters with lots of
seals right? Texas, Internet Attorney, and

shit like that. And so we got our own seal
with the Internet Partnership for No

Internet Content. Also sometimes we will
get asked by you know, different...

entities, companies and whatever like you
know you do fake banners and shit like

that and then wanna. They want you to take it
offline and usually when you talk to big

companies and you want them to do
something they tell you: Um I'm not sure,

I'm not the right person to talk to. They
just send you to someone else and never

get solved. So we just mirrored that. And
so whenever someone asks us to take some

information off our servers, I say you
know, you need to speak to a different

department. And because that's real
complicated I made this form. And it's the

universal content and/or domain removal
form. It's very complicated, this was not

what it was in the beginning. And it was
you know it's like when you transfer a

domain. It's hard, right? You need to sign
all that and fax it and not with all of

them, but some of them. And you just need
to put lots of bureaucratic barriers in

there, right? You still got to think you
really want to get the shit solved, right?

You do. But there's just so much paperwork
that you got to fill out. Not you but the

other people who want to get the stuff
offline. And all the departments... The

shit never gets solved. And then I coded
it and basically it just works like that

you can just put in any domain and it just
creates a legal document and that you it's

fine you know we have so many the wording
is just fine. And like a preliminary, you

know injunction or whatever and then you
just send it out. We didn't automize it,

because we didn't want to be the ones to
blame in the end again. We figured the

user can send it out by themselves, you
know? We're not going to be the clowns,

yeah? And take on your own responsibility,
right? And you just send it out, and if

you have a legal document where it says
you know this domain I don't know i'm so

cool dot com is supposed to be taken
offline, because they're engaging in child

pornography. I guess lots of providers
will take it offline, in the beginning not

to do anything wrong. So this worked
really well and it's... again I think it's

important to use stuff that comes back to
you. In form of legal papers in this

context, to make something else out of it.
And also it just cuts out the middleman

again. You don't need a lawyer, you don't
need a court, you just need your own court

papers and that's fine. The next one I did
was the Bank Statement Generator. It's a

weird account statement, and it's a
generator that works like that, you just

enter a starting figure and you pretty
much and you enter some other shit and

your name and blah and so on. And then you
enter how you want to feel when you get

the statement. You know, pretty much
everyone has the same deductions right?

You go to H&M and you do some Amazon and
so on. And yeah I don't think you can ever

really get high numbers but you know you
just from suicidal to total mania that's

what you can kind of decide for yourself,
how you want to feel. I got that because

we were really broke at the time and I
remember I was sitting at home I got open

letters and one letter from the bank and
it said like oh you're in debt. And I felt

really bad. And then I figured why am I
feeling bad because of ink on paper? This

is really crazy, and it's um it's so this
is always what I say: This is just pixels

on screen and the other one's just ink on
paper. Especially because we're not

talking about personal letters, we're
talking about letters, they get sent out

by servers that are signed by people. You
can't talk to a person about them. So

they're not a letter, that's not what
constitutes a letter. This is fucking

newspeak. So if you react to anything that
gets sent to you by a server with an

emotional reaction, something's wrong with
you, you know?

applause
So this is, I put this in here because my

daughter really really loves it. It's
Clickistan. Clickistan, I put it also, put

it in there because we developed this
project for the Whitney Museum of American

Art. And it was a bit of a hassle, it's
Clickistan so it's like a Javascript click

game. And I just used lots of stuff that I
already had and you know Javascripted it

around, it's all weird and stuff. But we
couldn't release it right away because

they were concerned about the wording. And
they were concerned about the words. I

couldn't use the words muslim,
fundamentalist, and terror. And I had not,

I had not put them in any special you know
context, these words. Like, there was this

one screen where it said are you allergic
vegan muslim or i don't know whatever. And

you just, and it's clearly not a political
project but there was no way they would

release the project with these words in
it. So I figured okay I don't... I'm

really bad with getting censored, so
that's not cool. So I proposed to them, if

it were okay with them if we just took
these words out and instead put in the

word you know variations of the word
censor. And they were like oh that's fine.

laughter
I thought "no not really, but I'll go

ahead." So that's yeah it was fucking
crazy. I'll show you the video, it's an

online game but you're not gonna play it
now. But you can watch the video.

repeated mouse clicks
chiptune music

applause
Okay. Well this is like a small project we

did, I don't know it feels like at least
10 years ago. And this is what we call a

web painting. Basically, I mean you can
read a bit for yourself.

laughter and applause
We just took the text and pretty much

everything else from a website called Iris
scan obviously. And just, just exchanged

the words, to make the content and the
message a bit more clear I guess. We have

not used this in a performative way yet,
but if we could ever find a pardon to do

that I would gladly set it up on, you know
I don't know, a conference you know? An

airport? And just see you know if people
are gonna participate. You know it's just

a small moment. You can go to your own
private room if you want to. By the way

that's what you call uh affirmative
approach, right? Versus critical... And

Alanohof, the alano ranch. That's... this
is this really small project we did a few

years ago. It's just a regular fake site,
right? And it's about this fake farm into

role that produces organic meat from these
hounds. It's all very well and we just

produced it for this small you know
cultural association, a club in Tirol. And

she said can you do something that will
you know give us our you know a title page

on our you know tyrolean newspaper? And I
mean that's, it's easy it's fun. But it's

really just a fun project, right? We got
into so much trouble because of this

project.
applause

We have you know like we had five
different times and you were there right

we had police standing in front of our
doors at home right? It's like Sunday

evening, it's Sunday evening I'm by myself
because my partner just went to Sofia for

whatever he always does there. And you
know, knock on the door and it's these two

police guys they're like oh mumbles I
like look at them, go like you're not here

for Alano, are you? And they're like:
yeah. And I'm like, what the hell? You

know it's been like, four years since we
did the project and they're still coming.

I don't know it's because of the dogs you
know don't do anything. It's not a cat,

you know? We know don't... laughter and
applause I don't understand that, don't

say anything mean about cats on the
internet, yeah. laughter We all bow our

heads to the gods, right? But now
basically it was also a newspaper that got

behind it and there was some you know dog
hating forum that totally loved the site.

But I mean seriously, I mean they made
police people drive to the About address

we put on the on the website. And drive
there and there was like this local police

guy who knew up front that there was no
farm there. And we read all the card

papers and so on it says like oh i went
there and there's no farm and no one

around knows it. We had... but the thing
was we had to pay money for that because

there was no imprint on the website in the
beginning. And this is actually you

know... this was not a problem early on
because basically this means I mean this

is a, it's a fake site, you know? If
police contact you and you're like no

we're artists, this is a fake side they're
like fine. And the first two police people

that contacted us, they were also okay
that's fine yeah. Actually it's

interesting kind of a book and so on. But
you know laws change over time. And now,

you know they really made us put an
imprint in there, otherwise you know we

could have you know paid as much as
20˙000€. And they were like if you put the

imprint in now, you only pay like 200. And
we're like we're not paying 20˙000€ for a

freaking dog, obviously not. For you know
we paid more than 20˙000€ for you know

doing the whole vote auction bullshit, but
not for a dog, you know? So that's all you

know, judicial stuff you know? See? It's a
yeah "Tötung von gesunden Hunden", killing

you know healthy dogs. We should have put
up that we're only killing sick dogs.

laughter Mea culpa, yeah. So now on to
something a lot more serious. This is a

project that's very close to my heart.
It's called Superenhanced. And started

doing this in about 2006 to 2008. And
actually I want to, this is important for

me for various reasons. Also because of
the talk that's going on right now

obviously all the time. We're all being
listened to and so on and I don't

understand how anyone could not have known
that. I seriously don't. Because we all

know that anything that's technically
possible will be done. We know that from

ourselves, even if it's only very often
only very little because we're technical

incapable, yeah? But there was something
else on the agenda and that was you know

the issues of enhanced interrogation,
Torture Taxis, super max prisons in the

states. And I personally don't really
understand, I mean I do understand, but I

still don't understand why there's this
huge uproar now about you know the NSA

bullshit, but there was never any of that
big upper already really got to people

being imprisoned. And this is also you
know, this is where real terror laws

started happening, right? And this is and,
no nothing. I didn't hear anything and we

did this project. And one part of the
project is a this is just image material

from our research. I did like half a year
of research on this project. And then I

programmed the Superenhanced generator
together with a friend of mine. And it's

basically an interrogation software.
Because it's always the problem in

interrogations who's to fucking blame if
anything goes wrong? So we did a software,

so the software is to blame, right? So you
can only follow your orders, and

everything it's fine. So basically it just
runs you through and if you don't answer

properly you get into trouble. So that's
not fun, I know, I'm so sorry. We used

this in a few performances, in Palestine I
think. Yeah that's right we went to Israel

and went to Palestine and I really gotta
say the one, the performance in Israel

didn't work out. Because the people we got
as volunteers, they just totally fucking

chickened out. I mean it was really just
like you know, what do you do in the

beginning? Like you throw a bit of water
into people's faces or whatever? As an

enhancement rate and they're just
chickened out. Versus the people in

Ramallah they were fine because they were
all really experienced. laughter No

seriously there was a hundred percent of
all the people that were you know there

for our talk had experience in being
detained. I mean really detained, not

just, you know? And about 50% had been
more than once. So this is the system

graph of the generator. And more images,
sorry to spoil your party. And, wait...

We're looking for a specific image. Oh
that's, if you want to read a good book

this is really close to my heart now. Read
this book by Murad Kurnaz. Just read it.

It might not be a nice christmas present
but use it for easter time somebody got

nailed on a cross there. so that's fine
applause We worked together with this

guy, Chris Arendt who was a guard in
Guantanamo. And he lived with us for two

months. You know, so we could do more
research and talk and block. Get the

hands-on approach, that's what we like.
And he's kind of okay now. He was in a

really bad state then. But I don't feel
bad for him because I feel bad for the

victim not for the perpetrator. I'm sorry
Chris, he knows that. That's a set of

photographs we did with our kids. People
find it offensive. Billy always laughs

about it, right? Stop laughing Billy.
That's her little sister Lola. That's, we

don't need that. That's a grown-up person.
And that's a funny thing too. I mean,

these pictures I found on the back up of
my iPhone and I had never seen those

pictures before. I had not, I mean I know
my research, I had not seen those pictures

before. And when I had to you know sift
through my backup I found all these

pictures of Guantanamo courtrooms. I found
that really strange, but it was very you

know helpful. So this is, there's more to
show obviously, but there's not so much

time. There's just like one thing I want
to say before we kind of end this and

it's: If we always talk about these issues
now of privacy and so on, please bear in

mind that this is a first world problem.
The southern hemisphere does not suffer

from you know being spied on all the time.
They suffer from not getting any fucking

attention. So just bear that in mind, that
it's kind of a luxury problem that needs

to be discussed obviously. Second forget
crypto because crypto is elitist. I'm not

saying don't do it at all obviously, it's
something that we all want us to pursue.

But if you try to find a solution for the
situation now it's not going to be crypto

because nobody can fucking use it.
inaudible interjection Okay? And then,

to all these engineers of the internet,
all the sysadmins with so much power and

lots of, you know, intelligence very
often, lots of brain, but so little

education. So you know, so little amount
of books have you ever read. So little

knowledge and so much responsibility.
Please, read a book. Read a motherfucking

book. I just applause Maybe not the
"Allgemeinbildung for dummies" that I just

saw on the train last week, but something
like that, okay? We need to close now, I

mean we were running a bit late with
starting it, but how much more time do we

have? Yeah so um I'd rather stop now and
we have time for some Q&A, what do you

think about that? I'm not going to run a
vote on it.

Herald: Okay for any question there is...
just cue on the microphones in the room.

Question: Hi...?
lizvlx: Hi!

Q: Okay hi, you seem to like confrontation
so mine is what's your point?

applause
lizvlx: You just asked me again, do you

think that's funny? That's the same
question again. There's no point in a

confrontation. I'm not the confrontation
the fucking terror law is the

confrontation. I'm just mirroring that
shit. If you got a problem with that, then

you're not doing anything. And you don't
need to do anything i'm not telling you

what to do what, not at all you know. I'm
just doing the stuff that I think makes my

life more enjoyable.
Herald: Number two.

Q: Hi, I wasn't going to say anything but
the last few words provoked me. On behalf

of people that I know who don't live in
the first world, surveillance is a

problem. And if you think that it isn't,
you're wrong. sporadic clapping

lizvlx: Well I spend lots of time in
Africa and Near East. Most of all in

Africa. And I know surveillance is not an
issue in a slum. It's just not, because

nobody even knows that you're alive. So
you cannot be surveilled. No, they really

have issues of visibility. And I know
intellectually, of course. And so on, yes

I know where you're coming from. But
still, I mean. I don't know how many times

you're in Africa, but last time I checked,
not really, no I.

Q: I don't work in Africa, I work in the
Americas, but um I think it's a good point

for a discussion but i don't think that
it's helpful to state to make a broad

statement like that in this kind of
environment where you have this stage. And

we certainly would really like to talk to
you more about that. Because it's not good

to say that. It's not like internet
surveillance is not necessarily a problem.

But surveillance is a problem. On the
street, surveillance is a problem, having

people outside of your house watching you
24 hours a day is a problem.

lizvlx: No we don't want to, that's not
what I mean, obviously. Surveillance it's

not a problem it's just ugly bullshit that
no one needs. It's just idiotic, you know?

It just makes sense and it no obviously.
But there is no street surveillance in

most of Africa, you know? So it's not it's
a different world there and I just want

you...
Q: Well not the first world is bigger than

Africa as well, you said the southern
hemisphere...

lizvlx: Well we yeah we I get to a point,
but I was making a different point.

Q: Okay.
Herald: Back to one.

Q: Hello? You talked about uh self-
censorship.

lizvlx: Yeah.
Q: Is there a connection to pure

reflection, and... between self-censorship
and reflection so what is reflection to

you, and what is self-censorship?
lizvlx: Well, especially when it comes to

Facebook you know, right when you type in
your message it already gets recorded.

Even if you delete it, right? So that's
right the case of you're just self-

reflecting. But they get it then you self-
censor yourself and then still... So it's

because it gets all very fuzzy I think.
And I think the fuzziness is kind of an

issue right there. Because if you just
censor yourself because you don't want to

say that that's fine. But if you don't
want to say it because of some other

implications that will happen that are
fucking crazy, then you have a real issue,

I think.
Q: Thank you.

lizvlx: welcome
Herald: Three now.

Q: Yeah um
lizvlx: hi:

Q: I see art as being something on the
fringe and I think that's what you're

doing. But I'm interested in what you,
what you think will happen when this will

get internalized. I think you see my
point. So you know, art is always

something like exploratory, something kind
of out there. And eventually it becomes

mainstream. I mean it takes time, but it
will become mainstream. So what do you

think will happen when this becomes
mainstream?

lizvlx: Well I only know, I mean, I see
lots of our work in the context of

Viennese Actionism and you know that was
in the 60s when it just smeared each other

up with you know any kind of body fluids
and so on. And that's still not really

mainstream in a way. So I can't go back to
any historical parallel really.

Q: I don't think there's any historical
parallel. I think this is always new.

lizvlx: But I guess it just in a way it
becomes more mainstream because it gets

old, you know? It's like an old computer
with the old website, for example.

Q: So it never really gets internalized in
a certain sense?

lizvlx: It might not, which I really like,
yeah.

Q: Weird stuff, thanks.
lizvlx: Yeah, you're welcome. good

question!
Herald: There is time for one last

question, which is to the guy in the
microphone one.

Q: Hi I have a follow-up.
lizvlx: hey

Q: The first thing is concerning the
surveillance in the first world. I mean if

you're in Africa often too, or often. I
mean how many people there have mobile

phones and will have in the next years and
what will they do with it. That's actually

my question and i think that's why i don't
think this first world third world thing i

don't think that works at all. Because our
aim is to make one world, and in this one

world we all will have this problem. And
the second question is how does like

animal rights law abuse how does that
somehow refer to anti-terrorist laws.

lizvlx: Well okay first question. Lots of
people have phones in Africa. Extremely,

an enormous amount. Because they use it
for payment. They don't use it for

internet surfing. Because that's not
possible. So it's a totally different

usage. So surveillance comes in from a
totally different aspect. So you can't

make these people profiles out of their
behavior. It's just a really different

world. If you want to make it one world
that's great, but it's not there yet. So

it doesn't make sense I think to impose
our first world scenarios onto theirs.

Because it's not the situation yet, you
know? But at least that's also what i get

from you know talking to people from
Africa. That's one thing and the second

one, how does that correlate with
antiterrorist? Because it doesn't matter

to them any more. Because if they want to
take your website offline or whatever

you're doing they want to stop it, they
will find some kind of aspect in any kind

of law business, they'll find and then
they'll get at you. And also I mean

obviously when it comes to animal rights,
you're quite quickly in a terrorist scheme

because it's like the anti-organized
crime. There was quite a bunch of

activists incarcerated in Austria because
of animal rights activism. So actually

that's really close together. What you
wouldn't think but it actually is by now.

Um we have yeah if you can we have a 30
seconds question from the Signal guy up

there.
Signal Angel: That's fine so we had a lot

of questions on IRC on why did you put
your daughter on stage? laughter

lizvlx: Why is my daughter on stage?
Because she likes being with me. Yeah it's

very easy. It's a family business
situation. I asked her if she wanted to be

in the audience or up on stage with me
she's opted for the stage version.