Big Brother is watching us

Comment

Comment by Ruud Janssen on February 2, 2015 at 6:23pm

published in the magazione Rubberstamp Madness in the end nineties...

Comment by Ruud Janssen on February 2, 2015 at 6:13pm

Hi Heleen, A great find that book..... In those years I was in contact with lots of mail-artists in the DDR, and you can find some traces of that in the book. Got a copy for my collection too from the author.......

Comment by Heleen de Vaan on February 2, 2015 at 5:46pm

I found an interesting book, issued in 1994, about the mail art scene in the former DDR (East Germany) during the years 1975-1990.

The book is in German only, but has many interesting pictures, and information on the art, the mail artists and of course also on the Big Brother practices which were clear there (and which still exist everywhere, be it in the western world far more hidden!?*). The letter ('Kopie') top left is an example of some state control.

The head of the newspaper article you see above bottom left, 'Briefe verschwanden - wohin ging ihr Inhalt?', means: 'Letters disappeared - to where did their content go?'

It's an excerpt of a very interesting article about the so-called 'Stelle 12', and via google I found this also interesting  article, 'Knast für eine Postkarte', which means 'Jail because of a postcard'.
(hopefully you can decipher it via an online translator if you are an interested, not-German-reading, reader :-) ).
I think it hard to believe, but these things happened (and might still happen in several places..).

*) By the way, the newspaper article you see on the cover, below, is about spionage the other way round, it says "West-German (BRD) security service controls letters from East-Germany (DDR)".

So, some historical food for thought..

Comment by borderlinegrafix on November 20, 2014 at 5:56pm

Comment by borderlinegrafix on August 15, 2014 at 8:40pm

Comment by borderlinegrafix on July 6, 2014 at 3:16pm

Heleen - these are old-school, not like the equipment they have today.  I made sure these were public domain photos before picking them off the wiki commons website from a 'NSA' search.  It would be great to mail them, but unfortunately they belong to the government!

Comment by Heleen de Vaan on July 5, 2014 at 10:43pm

Interesting objects, Borderline, thanks for showing them!

I've never seen these before, even never heard of them before. Of course one question arises: how  large are these things; are they mailable? 

Comment by borderlinegrafix on July 4, 2014 at 5:15pm

NSA encryption rotors -

Comment by borderlinegrafix on November 26, 2013 at 12:21am

Comment by Heleen de Vaan on November 20, 2013 at 9:04pm

No worries, Google says "it intends to use the structures as learning spaces for people to find out about new tech." If they say so, then it is as they say. And it appears that Google embraces IUOMA, so we can go back to sleep peacefully.  :-|

 

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