An installation by the German artist Robert Lippok, using
the Cubase music production computer programme. Data
is converted into electricity
to power drilling machines, which in turn drive the turntables.
Transnational outreach: the websites of Crash Media, an on-line publication from
Manchester, UK ...
… and of Belgrade’s B2-92 radio. |
Young rebels are not only
attacking the music industry but also creating new circuits of solidarity via the
Internet
 The
Internet has provided a playground for young rebels to hit the music industry where
it hurts: stealing their intellectual property. Breaching copyright laws has long
been seen as good conduct. Back in the 70s, punk record labels used slogans such
as “Home taping is killing the music industry, keep up the good work.” However, the
threat to established publishing houses has always been limited, as pirating on ordinary
tapes made distribution technically complicated. Throughout the 70s and 80s some
independent mail ordering systems were set up, creating a network amongst pirate
radio stations. But they never hurt anyone.
Today, young, subversive elements have the Internet at their fingertips, and the
cultural industries on their knees. The audio format MP3 allows us to compress audio
CDs into small files which can be made accessible on the Internet. Just click, download
and listen. All you need is a modem, a phone line and a mediocre computer. Surely,
having access to exactly the same distribution channels as the multinationals dissolves
established power structures. And without any financial pressure, no additional costs
other than the phone bill (mostly paid by parents), youthful enthusiasm combined
with a complete lack of respect for legislative regulations opens the floodgates
for piracy.
Of course, “young people on the Internet” are not all about stealing intellectual
property. In fact, the real opportunity lies in becoming part of a global cultural
exchange—without depending on the old-fashioned music industry. Instead of producing
and selling products, alternative models of work are taking shape. For example, an
originally anarcho-communist concept—the gift economy—is alive and well. The philosophy
is simple: trade what you have, and who needs money anyway? Pilot FM, a Vienna-based
MP3 label, which has grown out of the crossover between independent Internet Service
Providers and electronic sound artists, states on its website: “Though we won’t charge
you for the downloads, we are thankful for donations of any kind such as hardware,
software, traveller’s cheques, canned tomato soup, instant coffee or any other device,
which you think makes life more pleasurable.”1
Sound artists have also learned from the Internet’s Open Source development. In a
nutshell: the more beta-testers and developers working on a product, the better it
is. This has been proven time again with software development, which is far too complicated
for a single individual to manage. Turning to the cultural field, artists are rolling
over the old notion of copyright. Give away your building blocks (ideas), see what
others make of them and this will help your own development. So we find sample banks
and archives for storing sound and music files available all over the Internet. An
avant-garde hip-hop musician with a taste for squeaks may find the sound of her dreams
in an archive. She may in turn transform that squeak and so the bank grows richer…
The archives also enable net radios to enlarge their playlists. One of many examples
is the Budapest based DJ net.radio station Pararadio2, running a tight schedule of
DJs and sound artists. Daniel Molnar, one of the spirits behind the project, explains:
“We don’t even need to rely on produced sample discs, we have on-line sample stores
and free archives. (...) If you feel real, join the new folkateers.”3
Liberating
information
But the subversion
goes beyond attacking the music industry to the political sphere. With the emergence
of a digital equivalent to the public sphere, issues of civil disobedience and revolutionary
spirit have shifted into the electronic networks. Throughout the 1980s hackers took
the symbolic role of the militant opposition. “Information wants to be free”, they
claimed while pulling confidential files out in the open.4
Today the streets of Vienna offer a cogent example of youth seizing the Internet
to organise resistance. Since the new right-wing government took power, youth groups
like Volkstanz organised via the Internet weekly street parades with live DJs throughout
the capital, while toying with the government’s helpless attempts to control them
by proudly stating on their website: “All insults are welcome: we are the hedonistic
Internet-generation, the dance floor wing of the resistance movement. (…) We want
to fight through the medium of political street parties the territorialisation of
youth culture.”5
Belgrade based Radio B 2-92 (formerly B92) is another example of subversive youth
culture via Internet. As they announce on their virtual JukeBox: “By playing music
with a subtle but unmistakable political and social message, Radio B92 confronted
the aesthetic that had been imposed on the “silent majority”, one that failed to
foster liberal attitudes in the country during the disintegration of former Yugoslavia.”6 With their on-air frequency under constant
threat of closure by the government, Free B92—the website—has become a meeting place,
drawing audiences far beyond the borders of former Yugoslavia.
From early on, radio aficionados were quick to seize the cyberworld’s audio formats
to link virtual space with the streets. London based irational.org is no exception.
Besides the pirate radio handbook7, they also feature the net.radio
guide8 which has been developed by
various producers across Europe. Here the clever youth can find technical details
on how to connect on-line broadcasting with low-power FM transmitters.
But building bridges to the street via net radio is just one line of attack. Media
collectives across Europe had spent the final years of the last century learning
to transgress national borders via new modes of shared broadcasting and artistic
creation. The Berlin-based—and recently deceased—collective convex tv. came to the
conclusion: “There are a few simple reasons for doing things collectively: technologically
and economically speaking the collective is the only space where you can be marginally
successful and successfully marginal.”9
The aim isn’t to reach a bigger or mass audience but rather to connect pockets of
creativity and resistance via new modes of shared broadcasting. In their avant-garde
experimentation, technological possibilities and artistic expression are indistinguishable.
For example, in 1997 Riga’s net.radio station Ozone10 set up a mailing list (Xchange11) to develop the concept of “acoustic
space” involving techniques like co-streaming. As Raitis Smits, the station’s director,
has explained, “Each broadcaster takes another’s live stream [of sound], re-encodes
it and forwards it to the next participant.”12
Such transnational projects generate a new mode of communication amongst young practitioners.
Not only is there a need to work collectively within their own group, but they must
also laterally exchange knowledge, content and theory. They share an acoustic space,
yet they may never meet in “real space.” And so they leave the old artistic concepts
of community-based work behind and enter a new digital environment: the collective
is dead, long live the collective.
However, this digital network cannot truly serve as a source for democratic participation
and free speech without solid grounding in the “access for all” paradigm. Obviously,
access to the Internet means more than a phone line, a computer and technical know-how.
In terms of cultural production, “access” generates two problem zones. First, it
is generally assumed that the Internet allows marginal groups to make their voices
heard, yet the question is rarely raised as to who is speaking on behalf of such
groups.
Second, the idea of access for all is normally understood as a one-way process, meaning
everyone should have access to all information. But by reading this paradigm in reverse,
all information should be accessible to all. In the case of youth culture, danger
arises as a more homogenised MTV youth style is increasingly made available in standardised
formats on-line. So despite the little islands of resistance to “McDonald’s-style”
culture nuggets, we might face yet another problem, not unknown in the Western world—cultural
assimilation. Is this the price to pay? Substitute access with excess and you’ll
hear that same old song of homogenized culture. Re-wind or fast-forward?
1. Pilot FM (2000); http://pilot.fm
2. Pararadio (1997-2000); http://www.pararadio.hu/
3. Daniel Molnar: “Join The New Folkateers” in Crash Media Issue 1 (1998); http://www.yourserver.co.uk/crashmedia/utn/2.htm
4. For a detailed
description of the myth surrounding hackers, see Bruce Sterling: The Hacker Crackdown,
(1993), Mass Market Paperback.
5. Volkstanz.Net (2000); http://www.volkstanz.net
6. FreeB92 JukeBox (2000); http://www.freeb92.net/music/english/index.html
7. Irational
Radio: “How to be a Radio Pirate” (2000); http://www.irational.org/sic/radio/ . Their mission statement reads:
“To promote neighbourhood, political and open-access radio stations, to demystify
the art of broadcast electronics”.
8. Net.Radio Guide (1999); http://www.irational.org/radio/radio_guide/
9. convex tv.: “Making Alias” (1999);
http://www.art-bag.net/convextv/pro/alias.htm
10. Radio Ozone,
Riga; http://ozone.re-lab.net
11. Xchange mailinglist; http://xchange.re-lab.net
12. Raitis Smits: “X-Open Channel” (1999);
http://xchange.re-lab.net/i/
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