Preliminary Press Release
I. CHRONOLOGY
Wednesday, July 09th, 23:23
Travellers loosely connected by the kopimi way of life gathers at Högdalstoppen, an artificial mountain in southern Stockholm, next to an old city bus that has been bought and renovated during the previous weeks.
They held a vigil during the night, before heading for Manifesta in the daybreak, an international biennale for contemporary art where Piratbyrån has been invited.
Thursday, July 10th. 20:00.
The bus arrives in Malmö. A mixtape amnesty party is held and three more passengers gets on the bus. A total of 23 passengers will travel on the bus, properly named s23m.
Saturday, July 12th, 02:30
After a long travel day we finally arrive in Berlin. The night is spent at Bar23 co-conspiring with the Swedish art diaspora. The following evening, Piratbyrån co-arranges a party at the “Forgotten Bar Project”. Hundreds of people come visit the bus somehow transforming the event to “The Black Tape Day”. Two new passengers (one booked over IRC, the other a new Berlin recruit) are entering the system.
Sunday, July 13th,16:30
This Gesamtkunstwerk on wheels pays a visit at Richard Wagner’s Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, quickly forming a human Kopimi pyramid before continuing south through Realdeutschland. Evening is spent camping by the lake outside legendary Ingolstadt, where Piratbyrån unexpectedly decided to hold the second edition of Polar Pirate Prize.
Monday, July 14th, 18:00
Dinner at Kafé Hacker in the small suspicious (and possibly child-sacrificing) rainy, Austrian, alpine town Rattenberg. A war council is held, deciding to cross the Italian border and take over la Fortezza. Several hours later, the bus comes to a halt at the proximity of the huge fortress. Since it is one of the four venues for Manifesta the security is weak; a small recon squad can laserbreach the defence and capture the flag, replacing it with the flag of Kopimi. An interim government is succesfully installed, diplomatic relations start blooming, and the S23M crew climbs the 451 steps to the hillside fortress, for a roof top rejoicing of the victory, again and again, over and over, again and again, over and over…
Tuesday, July 15th, 15:00
First of two setbacks for the journey this day: A swimming session in the lake of 44 prohibitions is interrupted by the carabinieri. Piratbyrån, however, has an ace up their sleeves. As the art card is pulled, these fasci di lago takes a look at the bus and apparently realizes that the evidence is too abundant to ransack. Second of the two setbacks is the arrival in Bolzano, which practically ends the journey.
Wednesday, July 16th, 08:30
A full day at Ex-Alumix, the Manifesta venue where the bus is now parked. Activities intensify in all sectors - textile, audioelectronic, culinary, signalspaning - with the bus as a material epicentrum for the multiplication of Kopimi. In the evening, Piratbyrån plugs in to the rest of the Manifesta activities. As architectures are multiplied, info desk set up, out-curation of local sound artist and in-curation of Berlin based sound artist are performed, the s23m hub form a second nucleus of the site, an other pyramid top, in addition to the official Manifesta organisation.
Thursday, July 17th, 09:30
Visitors arrive. As the editing continues, utzi suits are tried out and BLAHA, visitors are encouraged to enter the bus and eyeball the residues from the trip. As lights come off and distant sound installations SKVALAR in the background, Manifesta shows itself its best side. The S23M crew, as sole guardians of Alumnix, close the last laptop lid and fades off to sleep.
Friday, July 18th, 03:30
Textile workshop just finished Ollibolli’s kopimist folkdräkt, Secret underground sound-installation explored. Video documentation of the journey is about to be projected at one of the windows of the bus.
Friday night will be the official opening of Manifesta7 in Bolzano; the opening party is arranged by Piratbyrån. It features Ollibolli, Jem Noble, Brokep, Nine Inch Nils, and several others.«
Saturday, July 18th, 03:00
The arch-melonization of flatitude
Sunday, July 20th, 03:00
S23M now controls CCTV, entry points, network, register, surrounding areas, most of the staff and the bookshop at manifesta7.it
II. TACTICS
Copying can express itself in multiple ways, of which P2P networks only make up a few. That was one message established in Piratbyråns famous Walpurgis ritual of 2007.
The S23M project is very clustered with The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest torrent tracker for file-sharing, On the bus there is no internet connection, but there are 100 mix tape cassettes, 23 spcial fanzines, a mystical barometer and a game of go, just to name a few things. Thus the project evolves themes from the Walpurgis ritual by transferring them from one mountain to another, from spring to summer, from the melting of winter to the flowering richness of summer. Eyeball the media!
At the same time, Piratbyrån sums up the five years that has passed since the initiation of the clustering in 2003. Finally, the bus trip is an experiment: what will happen when an online-based community is enacted within a delimited physical space, where participants must somehow spend over a week together?
The opening party on July 18th is also laborating with how the the digital abundance can be interconnected with time and space - more specifically how large subwoofers can be used for this purpose. As a guest performer, Piratbyrån has invited Jem Noble from the Bristol-based Blackout Arts Collective. He is presenting a sound sculpture, built by recycled loops, which he calls “generative piracy” and DJ some bass-heavy dubstep. Other DJ’s representing Pirabyrån, including Nine Inch Nils from the dubstep diaspora, and Brokep, more known to the world as the populous of The Pirate Bay.
The S23M project is financed mainly by a grant from the Manifesta foundation. Piratbyrån has added all their available money, coming from t-shirt sales. The Swedish state’s Arts Grants Committee refused to contribute, as would otherwise be the case when Swedish artists are invited to prestige biennals of this kind. Seemingly, futurehawkers like Piratbyrån are way too murky for Swedish art discourse.
III. PARTICIPANTS
Daniela Patricia Kopimi Maidana Alba, Johan Allgoth, Mikael Altemark, Klas Bäckelin, Daniel Berg, Jon Cullblad, Carrie Roseland, Pelle Ennerling, Magnus Eriksson, Rasmus Fleischer, Thomas Frössman, Nisse Hellberg, Piia Holmstedt, Simon Klose, Michael Koraszewski, Susanne Lindblad, Fredrik Omniuwo, Lina Persdotter, Peter Sunde, Olle Svensson, Palle Torsson, Sara Wolfert.