I haven’t posted here for a while, as I’ve been busy with projects and returning to teaching. I am proud to share that I Know Where Your Cat Lives is in a show opening today in Zurich. The statement is below. GROUP EXHIBITION – ALGORITHMIC LIFESTYLE 31. 8. – 13. 10. 2018 We click, we […]
Read More… from Algorithmic Lifestyle @ Roehrs & Boetsch, Zurich
After some traveling and conferences and development sprints on other projects I have time this week to come back to the Stasi work. The first post is about the Stasi Records Agency (BStU), whose full name (in English) is the impressive, “Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German […]
Read More… from Stasi / Facebook / Big Data DAAD Day 28 – The Stasi Archive and BStU
Yesterday I headed to the Museum für Fotografie to see two exhibitions on surveillance. The Field Has Eyes. Images of the Surveillant Gaze includes 75 prints, books, photographs and examples of optical apparatus to present a visual and cultural history of the controlling gaze from the 16th to the 20th century. I don’t have many […]
This week has been full of work on this project, including research in the BStU reading room, and making photographs at the archives at the former headquarters and the Stasi Museum. Today, for the first time, I visited The Memorial to Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, a large former prison complex which includes a former Stasi detention and interrogation […]
Read More… from Stasi / Facebook / Big Data DAAD Day 26 – Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen
Heißluftgebläse. Credit: Museum in der Runde Ecke The next artifact in my list is the “Heißluftgebläse”—a hot air blower constructed by the Stasi for opening envelopes and packages sealed with rubberized self-adhesive tape. Unlike the various steam methods the Stasi employed, which only worked on water-based glues and could potentially damage the contents of letters, […]
Credit: BStU Since hot steam could damage sensitive contents like photographs, the Stasi used the C-83 (“Cellophan 83”) “cold steam” generating device to open those letters. Produced in Hungary, the C-83 used a special film (cellophane) stretched over a tray filled with distilled water. Up to 25 letters could be placed on the film, flaps […]
Credit: Museum in der Runde Ecke If the “W”-shaped, two-letter steam distribution grid was an “upgrade,” then the ultimate “deluxe” Stasi steam device for manually opening letters with hot water vapor is the “Arbeitstisch der Heißdampf-Öffnungsanlage 532” (English: Work Table for Hot Steam Opening System 532). This modular table was constructed for Department M by […]
Credit: Museum in der Runde Ecke Like other devices constructed in the 1970’s and ‘80s by Department M and the Stasi OTS, this “Aufdampftopf” (“steam pot”) was fashioned using a basic household appliance as a starting point. Starting with a “cooking pot,” as it’s called in the Museum in der Runde Ecke index, the vessel […]
The Museum in der Runde Ecke in Leipzig has an amazing collection of devices found in the Leipziger district administration office (BVfS) during the dissolution of the Stasi. These are listed online in a thorough index with photos and descriptions. Their images are much better than those I was able to make through the glass […]
Department M, along with the Stasi OTS (Operativ-Technische Sektor), developed and implemented numerous technical tools, intelligence checks, and operational activities to speed their postal surveillance in the GDR. By the 1970’s, the department was already using various modified household appliances or industrial devices to assist in steaming open and closing letters. One example is this […]