Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/I got a plan/ramsattack

Text File | 1994-06-26 | 12KB | 265 lines

r.a.m.s. attack

    ..by Paco Xander Nathan, [e-mail]

FWR dropped by a small gathering this summer in Linz, Austria called Ars
Electronica '93... an annual festival of art + technology, focused this
year on "Genetic Art" and "Artificial Life". One of the main
attention-grabbers poised disturbingly at the main entrance to video
exhibits and conference auditoriums. Rising high above the crowd, a
scaffolding array of metal tubes, wires, cameras, mics, monitors and
speakers burst forth from the conference setting like a Front 242 stage
keyboard rack tangled in the wake of a tornado. Amidst this cybernetic
swamp, two turnstiles (in/out) affixed to the tangled gateway, seducing
conference patrons to penetrate their defenses and dare enter. As if these
raw mental images were not threatening enough, periodically the entire set
would rupture into a violent cacophony of loud, harsh Deutsch and bells and
signal lights whilst trapping a would-be entrant. P'haps excerpts from the
conference program might enlighten:

"Technologies have turned out to be problem makers, as an end in itself
where limited techno-disciples worship in ecstasy -- in the dusk -- a
golden calf, full of hope for the fictive Nirvana in the warm uterus of
virtual realities ... R.A.M.S. Attack is brutal radio, a radio terminator
which as a taker of hostages subjects its hostages to thematically glossed
interrogation, commanding absolute obedience to ignore everything -- like a
great inquisitor -- that seems not to fit in with his arbitrary schemes,
stupid machine-intelligence! R.A.M.S. Attack is the backlash, radio for
masochists who celebrate their orgasm in the first fuck ... The central
module harbours a hierarchical language programme with a working
question-answer system on a reverence word basis within acceptable
tolerance ranges ... Emotive words act as attractors ... We are creating an
interface where the medium and the public clash together ... The
prerequisite is the occupation of existing spaces and as offensive as
possible a breaking open of unreflected mechanisms."

Exploration of digital technology vis-a-vis radio/broadcast issues becomes
particularly salient in light of Europe's introduction of digital radio
(which the US is still struggling over). Our interview included exchanges
with Bernhard Loibner and Margarete Jahrmann. By the way, the name derives
from a line of American toys known as the Rebel Army of Militant Sheep,
which can also be morphed to imply Random Access Media System, just in case
you were wondering...

FW: Hi, I'm from an American magazine. I was wondering if I could interview
you about what you're doing here?

BL: We're capturing people, to try to get some answers.

FW: Yeh!?

BL: It's an automatic radio station -- can you see? With some computers and
some questions -- when we click it on it stops and nobody can pass -- as
you see? But it doesn't work all the time... We try to make clear how media
systems work, that they don't work as interactive systems, really... This
isn't an interactive system -- if people only say something stupid to us,
then we don't want to hear anymore from them... the idea that we should ask
them questions and they only say some bullshit in response... Media doesn't
work like this -- if you look at a talk show on TV, audience members are
only on the show to have somebody in the studio, but they aren't persons of
interest for the people who make the media. This is the intention for our
system here...

FW: You call it an "attack" -- do you consider that broadcast media or
non-interactive media in general is a kind of assault on an individual? A
kind of a violence?

BL: I'm sure that it's some kind of violence. Here's also one point: there
is a new kind of system called digital audio broadcasting which will also
be possible in a short while for TV. Along with a normal broadcast program,
you get certain extra information -- for traffic or security. You have the
possibility to get direct messages to your listeners without the
[untranslated word].

FW: Anonymity? Like traffic control systems with a controller who monitors
surveillance about receivers' -- the individuals' -- movements?

BL: Yeh, that's what I wanted to say.

FW: A notion in media theory contends that we exist within a sea of
overlapping "grids": for broadcast, for social interaction, electrical
power transmission, etc. Are you trying to demonstrate an anchor for a grid
here?

BL: No, I don't think that interaction really works, so we don't try to
demonstrate some new form of it here.

FW: Do you have any means of selection for the people you are capturing
here? Any criteria?

BL: No, there is no selection.

[Violent bursts of laughter erupt within the control room in response to a
"victim" answering a rather risque series of Macintosh-based
interrogation.]

FW: I've got to tell you, I think your installation is the best part of the
show. Coming from more of a "cyberpunk" background, I really appreciate
what you're doing! It's a beautiful sight...

BL: It's a very rough thing. I also selected the architecture for our
installation... It's like a spider; we catch people in our Web! Perhaps it
should be even more rough, less straight lines...

FW: What would you do differently?

BL: People should have to find their way through this system -- that would
be very funny.

FW: A maze that assaults you, that would be great! Have you done this
installation before, elsewheres?

BL: No, we did it once, just for here [Ars Electronica '93].

FW: Where are you all from?

BL: We're all from Vienna. By the way, I'm going to California in September
and would like to get some cool contacts.

FW: Okay, here's my card -- I apologize for the email host name "wixer"...
'Twas named after a science fiction character, they didn't know what that
word meant in Deutsch.

BL: You are a programmer?

FW: Yes, I do Mac work -- you have a Mac here... What other kinds of
systems? Is this all based off a Macintosh?

BL: Yeh, I did the programming. As you see, it's only a Hypercard-based
program. You can click on text -- the buttons -- to reconfigure the
questions. Nothing very special because we didn't have much time to develop
a complicated system.

FW: That's preferable --

BL: Yeh, it's more reliable that way. Because we had to make a lot of
changes, even once we got here we had to change the programming -- so it
was the only approach that made sense -- [extended group discussions in
Deutsch, something's up...] -- Okay, so she wants to make a capture now, so
you get to witness it. We use many protocols for controlling the
equipment...

FW: Great, what do you have on the end of the wire, as far as the
mechanics?

BL: We have a lighting mix console here, which is controlled via MIDI, and
that mixer console controls the barriers. The rest is mostly audio
equipment, which also goes through a MIDI mixing console over there.

[One floor below our control-room perch, a young Austrian woman attempts to
enter the conference, passing through gateway turnstiles constructed and
monitored by RAMS Attack. Midway through the turnstile, a servo locks,
trapping her within the gateway as a loudspeaker placed near her ears
launches an interrogation in Deutsch -- a man's voice dropped at least two
octaves. She acquiesces to answer extended questioning, while struggling to
escape her cybernetic captor(s).]

FW: Did you make the samples with MacRecorder?

BL: Yes -- [shows digitizer unit] -- we have a database of text converted
into speech, and I copied some of the questions using ResEdit, that's
all...

FW: In that case, you probably don't have to use many XCMD's [Macintosh
equivalent of DLL's for Windows.]

BL: No, I just use one -- the MIDI XCMD, an item from the HyperMidi stack.

FW: Do you allow any means to use a mic on yourself to ask questions?

BL: We didn't want to do any interactive thing at all, because the
"interaction" we approach is the connection with non-interactive media like
TV and radio.

FW: Most people don't realize what kind of violence comes at them out of
their "tube", so you've made the metaphor concrete -- I love that...

MJ: Yeh, we broadcast some parts of it too -- in the radio.

FW: Oh, YEH?!?!?!?!?

MJ: Sure, we've got a small radio station here and we've been collecting
parts of sayings and play them over the... "usual" program.

FW: You mean, that what people say in response down in the turnstiles, you
use that as sample sound bites for radio broadcasts?

MJ: The basic idea is that the "ordinary" radio program is existing, and
every time the trap is hounding somebody, we go live on the air. The
intention is to be the ultimate virus program.

BL: Actually, we destroy the usual program -- it has to do with our media
situation in Austria, since we don't have private radio, we don't have
private TV, we don't have public access.

FW: Hmm, yeh, we kinda do, but when you come over to the US, I ought to
show you around some of the local city access TV facilities... There's some
pretty good programs in my city out of that work -- Global Jungle, Content
Neutral -- but there's also a lot of pirate broadcast in the US. Have any
of that here?

BL: Yeh, we did it in Vienna for nearly one and a half years...

FW: Alright! Was it stationary or mobile?

BL: Both. It always was changing... But then the situation [read:
colloquial Deutsch for "politics"] became worse and we had to go
underground...

[A long chat about private matters ensues -- off record...]

BL: Yeh, we do the same -- we did a "vacation" in Vienna, but it was
financed by our ministry here, with lots of support <he, he, he>. That's
okay!

FW: Cool deal. Is there any, er, uh, how should I put this... any
theoretical offshoots of what you're doing? People analyzing for "academic
reports" then?

BL: You want to hear something academic??!? This is totally opposite from
the official, cultural scene so... we broadcast in the Austrian radio
network and we also have good money from official ministries to realize this
work. There are no "legal" commissions to do "illegal" broadcasting here,
but on the other hand, they did finance a lot of things. For example, this
conference last year was always strained because everyone knows that the
situation [read: politics] aren't agreeable, so the government tries to
support arts more in return. The media laws here are very, very bad.

FW: I've heard that the ORF [Austrian radio/television broadcast monopoly]
is a government thing...

BL: Oh, in the whole media system -- also with the papers included -- our
media situation here is the most constrained in the entire world [geez,
y'all haven't been to Singapore or Vancouver] -- Austria has maybe 7.5
million people, and there's one paper that on weekends has nearly 3 million
readers. So that's really strange.

FW: Groupthink, yeh.

[Bizarre, piercing sounds erupt, like some alien prelude in a Spielberg
movie. A broadcast kicks in featuring a new captive in the turnstiles.]

FW: I just saw a camera crew trained on the turnstiles downstairs. Did you
know that was going to happen?

BL: Yeh, there was a famous television personality coming through, and we
were supposed to have him filmed -- he didn't know the questions though...
We asked him some "dirty" questions [which apparently concerned the
possibility that a particular genital member of his physical personage was
dangling through a whole in his pants] and he answered them without knowing
about the live broadcast.

[...at which point much of the discussion broke apart into giggles and
quips and I nearly didn't get out of the control room unscathed because a
certain female member of RAMS Attack wanted to abscond off with my only
copies of Future Sex and WiReD. Very wonderful people; I sincerely hope
they don't get arrested or anything after this interview.]

----
Originally appeared in Fringe Ware Review #2, ISSN 1069-5656 -- For more
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