MICHA.ELMUELLER

Some years ago the Telecomix crew came up with the term datalove and wrote an according manifesto (see here for more details):

Love data
Data is essential
Data must flow
Data must be used
Data is neither good nor bad
There is no illegal data
Data is free
Data can not be owned
No man, machine or system shall interrupt the flow of data
Locking data is a crime against datanity
Love data

I use the term datalove quite often when referring to the free culture or open data movement. About two years ago I had the idea to create a voice mashup from the text and recorded various female friends reading the text. In order to give the mashup an electronic, digital feeling I alienated the voices a bit over an ambient electronic track (2012 by pielkor, CC-BY 3.0).

soundcloud direct link

At the time, two years ago, the result was not like I imagined and I wasn’t satisfied. So I didn’t release it online. Yesterday I listened to the track again and was quite surprised. It was by far not as bad as I recalled it. This angers me somehow. I have a lot of stuff, video interviews, photos, software, visualizations, which I haven’t released because I was unsatisfied with the quality, got aware of technical shortcomings whilst working on the project or realized how it could have been done better. In part, I am also trying to avoid giving other people a possibility to attack my own work. Today I think it was stupid not to release projects like this and I regret it. It was a nice project and I should let other people decide if they can use it or not.

I have to thank Saron, Zenib, Sonja, Kate, Amrei, Natty, Jenny, Elizabeth and Lisa without whom this mashup would not have been possible. The track is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International Attribution license (CC-BY 4.0).

The student group I participate in is called datalove as well, ulmAPI is an open data project by the datalove group.

Think for yourself.
Question authority.

Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities – the political, the religious, the educational authorities – who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing – forming in our minds – their view of reality.

To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself.

—Timothy Leary

direct link to youtube

… free music

Tymphony — I wish i could erase (instrumental, symphonic)
My Bubba & Mi — Apple Spell (folk, acoustic, country)
pornophonique — Sad Robot (electronic)
Nine Inch Nails — Ghosts II – 14 (rock, industrial)

… article

Auf die Universitaeten bezogen, ist das das Bild der Uni als Ermoeglichungsplatform. Studenten muessen von Ideen getrieben sein. Die Universitaet sollte dafuer sorgen, dass ideengetriebene Studenten ihr Potential bestmoeglich zum Nutzen der Menschheit entwickeln und umsetzen koennen. Dabei gilt es, den Studenten ein Fortbildungsangebot anzubieten, wissenschaftlichen Austausch zu beguenstigen, durch gute Ausstattung das Experimentieren zu ermoeglichen, und nicht zuletzt muss durch gemeinsame Werte eben diese Welt am Funktionieren gehalten werden.

—Markus Schnalke, Die Universitaet

I regularly participate in events by the Chaos Computer Club. I’ve been to the camp and held some seminars here in Ulm. Besides that we have a radio program at a free radio station here in Ulm: /dev/radio is on every two weeks for two hours at 13:00. 102.6 Mhz / Radio freeFM. Free radio means that anybody who becomes a member of the non-profit association and pays a small annual fee can get his own slot. /dev/radio plays only free music. Meaning music under a free license, preferably Creative Commons.

In one of the last broadcasts matou and hannes (right and left in the photo above) set up a challenge to submit a proposal for a jingle. A few hours before deadline I decided to give it a try. This is what I came up with:

soundcloud direct link

The morse code in the beginning was originally created by matou via a smartphone morse app. I applied various effects and did some editing on it. The background song is licensed as CC-BY-NC and is called “Rooted in Peace” by rocavaco. It is available here.