 Big Brother C, while he is watching, Simon Mena is talking to you about this, uncovering images from the secret Stasi archives. He was born in 1978 in Southern Germany, and now he lives and works in Berlin. He does a lot of stuff with photography and history, and he has been researching three years in Stasi files and images, and he is going to show us why this is still relevant today, or even maybe more relevant than ever. Give him a warm welcome. Thank you. So I was told to use this other than the lavalier mic, so I hope it works. First, the disclaimer, I'm an artist. I'm not a historian, so my approach to the material I'm going to show you is somewhat different from what you might expect from a regular historian, but we can discuss this as we go on. And very, very briefly, before I am going to show you images, I found that the archive of the Stasi end, some very few archives I found at the archive of the BND, I'm going to show you three bodies of work that brought me to my interest in the Stasi files, because I'm a trained artist, I'm a photographer, and normally I'm doing things like this, and I'm very interested in the relationship of perception, or what perception does within the context of modern conflict. And it turns out more and more importantly, perception is a battlefield and fear is a weapon. And this is actually not just a set of landscape images, it's actually a set of photographs for which I had the support by the German Army. They supported me with snipers. They were hiding in the landscape and aiming at the camera and therefore at the viewer, which is okay, of course, so the sniper would be here. And in most of the pictures from this series, there's actually almost no trace to be seen from a sniper, but this is the way a sniper looks within the landscape. So they were ordered to aim at me, even though I couldn't see them, so sometimes when they were posing, I told them, well, just don't hide behind a tree, and I don't see you, and they told me, no, no, don't worry, we are aiming at you. So, and of course the whole thing is artificial because they would never choose this kind of setting and this kind of environment to pose the threat. There's a sniper here or there's a sniper here, but this is something that really plays an important role in today's conflicts, that you try to occupy your opponent's mind and influence his or her behavior in that way through creating fear. That's another set of images. It's based on handbooks by the US Army on how to construct booby traps out of ordinary objects. Like here, a TV set or radio, if you switch it on, it blows up a box or a pipe. As an artist, I find this image very intriguing because there's this one very famous painting by Magrid. This is not a pipe. Actually, this is not a pipe, even though it's supposed to look like a pipe. So, but be aware that's from the 60s, from the US Army, and these handbooks are now out there and used by the opposing forces, by forces they encounter. And the whole story behind these manuals is, well, you're supposed to create fear in your opponent. Here's a German chocolate bar. If you break it off, it blows up in your face or a tea kettle. So, the more ordinary objects are, the more terrifying it becomes because once you realize that there's no way for you to avoid this idea of fear, everything is dangerous. Of course, the other side does this as well. This is from videos I found online. This is the last video frame before the blast. So, the last video frame before a car bomb or roadside bomb or something like this explodes. And the same is here. So, it's the same technique. And the more research I did on this big topic of fear and perception within conflicts, I started to think more and more about the topic of surveillance because the interesting aspect would be to look at images of surveillance because that would show us these mechanisms from the other side. But the strange thing is we talk so much about surveillance and what we talk about is image-based. So, Big Brother is watching you. That has something to do with images. But we take it for granted that there's nothing for us to see. Big Brother is watching us, but this hidden behind some curtains. But I came to realize that actually with the very unique history of Germany, we have this huge opportunity in the Stasi archives that are accessible to the public to try to show what Big Brother actually sees. And I approached them because I could only find written references to images they have. And I asked them, well, I could never find images. So, do these still exist? And they told me, yeah, sure, come over. And that was the start of a three-year or lengthy research project. And first, I'm going to show you images I was then in the end not really interested in. Images we know exist. And from now on, that's authentic Stasi material. And there's some from the Czech Republic and Jesus are. I'm going to point them out. And in the end, there's some from a BND. I point those out as well. That is something we expect to see. Like shots taken through buttonholes and surveillance in the streets or that's a U.S. Embassy in East Berlin and the entrance doors were all under constant surveillance with photo cameras and video cameras. But be aware in the 80s, the video equipment was not that sophisticated. So at night time, the Stasi did record eight hours of darkness, but it still ended up at the files. So that's a state of mind we're talking about. So everyone was photographed. And then we have quite often you find post boxes where each and everyone who's posting a letter is photographed. No matter who he or she is, even if it's an elderly lady, remember these images because I'm going to reference to them later. I was more interested in something like this. So the internal view. And now I'm two years ago, roughly two years ago, I was able to publish a book and now I'm going to somewhat follow the structure within the book because I was really interested in how do you become a spy and I encountered a lot of material that was meant for training purposes. These images are from a training session on how to disguise yourself as regular citizens, which I find quite strange because normally that's nothing you should have to learn. But still, and then you have a soldier and so these ordinary, ordinary citizens, some of them look like they live now in Berlin and amongst the hipsters like this one. That was entitled Western Tourist. Another tourist like the photographer. So the Stasi photographed something that tries to look like a photographer. So women work for the Stasi as well. And so the same thing. So disguising manuals. So what do you need to dress up like this and in what circumstance would you use something like this? He looks like from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I think. But be aware that that's not meant to be funny. That was not meant to be seen by any one of you or me. There was meant to train agents and we are going to see later that that was actually used. Here we have a hitchhiker at a motorway around Berlin and that's from the Jesus R archives which I was granted access earlier this year. They did the same thing. So it's not just something the Stasi did. They did it as well. And then you had other certain aspects of disguise like how to wear a wig or how to stick a fake mustache. For privacy concerns, the images had to be pixeled but I could see the faces while researching the archives. Much funnier actually. So to stick fake mustaches. And then again from the Jesus R, you could also disguise cars. Like you could draw something that's from a steel mill in the Jesus R. And then in a way a disguised stroller with a camera, with a video camera. And that's actually a video camera from Japan and they imported this type of surveillance equipment quite frequently, Sony. And then you encounter other material like how to transmit secret signals and how to transmit codes. The codes are not known now, but still the photos exist and they have a strange beauty in them. And then once you got your training and then you had to be taught how maybe to arrest someone and then you first knocked the door and then you arrest him and notice the piece of cloth on the floor because he didn't want to ruin his white shirt. And maybe he wants to fight, so you have to fight. So, but the Stasi always wins. And again the Jesus R, they took things very seriously. Things there seem to be escalating much quicker so you have to shoot people. And then again it quickly escalates and he has to be shot. And then now when you know that you have to be taught how to follow people around. And this sometimes you find is very elaborate stories where you follow people around. That's just a very short exception. So she's at the bakery and then she goes to a doctor's office which is already something Stasi maybe shouldn't know but still and then she does a phone call. And here you see she's smiling at the camera. Of course the whole thing is staged for the colleagues. But this sometimes is very lengthy. You see this guy shopping and then shopping and walking at Alexanderplatz and meeting another guy. And it's like a photo love story in Bravo really. It's like then they take the car and he gets off the car in the middle of the woods and he walks and another car comes and then they meet and why do you take such pictures? What's the point of that? But still that ends up at the archive and is part of the training operation. So now the training is done. And this then is a real surveillance photograph. You see a black arrow that's supposedly the person they were shadowing. And then you see okay now we are not in the training manual again but we are already one step ahead. And that's then the real material. He or she is followed around the country and then again Czech Republic you have like ordinary citizens being shadowed and during a house. So and after with the shadowing comes also the bridge of privacy. And here we have the room of a teenager which looks very innocent to us but I'm very positive that I guess it's Guy. He never entered university in East Germany due to the fact that they could prove that he was a fan of Wiley Coyote and the United States or so they thought they could prove. And they took such images as evidence for your thinking which is a problem of a surveillance operation I would argue. And then here we might have the, I don't know if you see it, that might be the biggest Madonna fan in all of communist Eastern Europe. Same thing probably you would never be able to study law or medicine or something like that. And then you have frequently, sorry cover your eyes maybe. And you have frequently you have images such as this and that was classified as Western pornography. And the funny thing about this classification very often you find files that read Western pornography and the photographs are missing. So someone went to this apartment, documented everything, archived it, maybe the guy was prosecuted and when no one was looking they took the pictures which then shows the absurd nature of the system. Then this, for me this is a very key image and it's a set of images but this is actually one of the images that brought me to contacting the Stasi archives. I read about those images. This is a Polaroid as you can see by the white background. And as a matter of fact the Stasi frequently purchased Polaroid films or confiscated Polaroid films sent to East Germany. And the reason for that was when they broke into people's homes and you should never find out the easiest thing was you break in, you look around, what looks interesting, you take a Polaroid and with the help of the Polaroid you are able to put everything backwards in the original position. So this is an absolute brutal image because that shows the deepest possible breach of privacy imaginable. And most people in fact never found out that their apartment was searched. And there was absolutely illegal even in East Germany. And so it was very revealing last year at German TV station thought it's a clever idea to hook me up with a former Stasi general. And I told him about the Polaroids and he said, yeah but please keep in mind I never broke into people's apartments. I said, yeah well, did you order it? Yes, I ordered it but I never broke into people's houses. And I said, what stupid excuse is that? Who then is responsible? Because normally the excuse is always, I was ordered to do. And his excuse was, yeah, I just ordered them. I don't really, why would they do it? So see, I just ordered it. Was not my intention. So that really was revealing to me it's like the state of mind within such a system. So you have folders and folders of those Polaroids. And when they found something incriminating they might have returned few days later with the police and search warrant. Because they needed the search warrant even in East Germany. So, and then now we realize that that's, even though it looks funny the way they disguise themselves it's meant seriously and it's a terrible brutal system which you also see in these images from the Chieses R where people are forced to stage their own attempt of fleeing the country. So they were made to stage the thing they were arrested for even the young child was made to re-enact their failed attempt to flee the country. And that is brutal. And so sometimes you find images they are completely out of any category. Like a guinea pig. I told you earlier to think back of the, remember the post box with the old lady. There's an image from one of those files. So you have a shot, a surveillance operation of a post box you see it's taken from a high angle and maybe out of a private apartment. And then you have this shot of the shot of the shot of the shot and two pictures of this guinea pig. And then the surveillance operation continues. And what I read out of that is he was in a private apartment and was bored and they ran this guinea pig. And he lies flat on the ground, takes two shots and then continues the surveillance operation knowing that the material is going to end up at the archive and gets his archive number. That's German bureaucracy I guess. And so very revealing. So who are these guys? That's actually a British spy. There were some officially registered Western spies within Eastern Germany. The Russians had the same thing for West Germany. And the Stilesies job was to follow them and document what they were doing. They couldn't do anything to them. They only could document it. And you find many of these images. Like a spy taking a picture of a spy in an endless circle of surveillance. And what's very revealing is the fact that I tried to gain access to the dare material. It's still classified. I'm very positive. I know what the image shows. It's pretty much the same thing. But so I try to understand what these people are thinking but it turns out even though they were fighting each other they seem to share a very common state of mind. But so that looks like the endpoint of surveillance. No, it's not. It's one step further is stasi agents watching. Stasi agents watching other people. That's a triangle of surveillance. So common as well. Just never be sure about your colleagues. They could be up to something. So better spy on them as well. But then I present you the absolute high point and endpoint of surveillance, which is the surveillance selfie. I give you another one. They knew it's going to end up at the archive. So they're spying on themselves while spying on others while spying on themselves. So it's almost meditative. So now who are these people? Now we're really at the internal view. The stasi looks at itself. Here's a group photo. Remember this guy. We encounter him later. That happens to be the phone surveillance unit. Highest ranking officials here. That's the boss of the whole bunch. And of course the stasi is in Europe. They like their medals. And then an award ceremony. Flowers, medal, piece of paper. And there's this guy from the phone surveillance unit. Again, so he gets really shabby flowers. And piece of paper. That's odd. See this? It's a wax seal. And it's burned at the site. Because he was nightened as a night of the phone. Phone surveillance unit. See this? To the non-Germans. That's an aberration symbol for a code of law in Germany. Outside Germany, that's not widely used. He knew that they were breaking the law. And they're mocking it. They're mocking it with this ceremony. So now here, here at the night of the phone surveillance unit. Congratulations. Ha, ha, ha, what a good joke. Another set of images, which is very revealing, is this. Strange, strange finding in the Stasi archive. A strange combination. See the bishop and the soccer player. And back there with the blue shirt that's a party youth member. And then they see the ballerina there. Strange. The guy in a suit, it's his birthday. And he's the boss of them. He's one of, these are all highest ranking Stasi officials. And they surprise him with a birthday party. And the surprise is to dress up as those people you put on the surveillance. So see, party youth, soccer player, another soccer player. The ballerina, beautiful, very beautiful. Soccer fan, of course, you have to put them on the surveillance. A doctor, of course, who cares about the right to be quiet of doctors. A judge, of course, you have to put the judges on the surveillance. And then that isn't, this guy's a dress up, hardly to be understood outside Germany. He's dressed up as a peace activist. And he wears this, sorts to plowshares, sweater to flukshaw and sticker at his head and some other peace stickers there. And he is very proud of himself. Why is that? Because it was such a successful, successful costume. I think, where did he get the costume from? The easiest thing for someone like him would be to take it from someone they put in jail. Because you could at least lose access to university for wearing just one of these stickers. At least, or you could serve some short time, but some time in jail. You could lose access to good housing and everything. Why is he able to mock it? Because he's the one who would decide whether or not you lose access. And this is the terrible thing about these images. They're very revealing. I'm very fast, I'm sorry. So, these images are now, what, 25, 30 years old. Why do I think these images are still relevant today? It's because of something like this. There was a short period after the fall of the Berlin Wall, so the wall fell in November 9th. And the Stasi wasn't dissolved till early January. So there was a very short period of time where the Stasi could actually try to destroy material. They managed to do, destroy, a huge bunch of material, not very important set, except for an espionage that's almost gone. But if it would have been up to them, that would have been the fate of all these images. Destruction. We would have never been able to look at these images. And even though we don't know what these images stand for, maybe that's a group of gay men and they infiltrated it and it was compromising to one of their colleagues that they infiltrated it, they did things like that. But they tried to destroy it. So 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, even more now, why do you still think this material is very relevant? I'm going to show you something that's even more special and more rare than the material I showed you just now. It's this. Over the course of approximately a year, I tried to convince BND to grant me access to their material, which would be amazing because in Germany we have this one society with the two opposing systems. So the view on the Cold War would be absolutely astonishing if you would be able to look at all the material. And after a year, they got a call and just told me, yeah, we got something for you, come over. There was actually, they have a relatively small section in Berlin, so I went there with my scanner. And they gave me the, I would call them, 14 most boring pictures of the BND history. It's a matchbox, this and that. And when I looked at these images, I was like, are you kidding me, what do they show? And this guy was very serious and told me, unfortunately I can't tell you it because the information is still classified. But back then he told me, yeah, as far as he knows, these are the only images they ever released. And yeah, toothpaste. So there's a huge problem I have with this, of course. But with this young lady in particular, but in general these images, they can decide which images to show. And one of the guys I was in contact with there, he told me, of course we have these disguise pictures and dress up and things like that. But keep in mind, even though back then he might have been the lowest in the hierarchy and now he might be head of the department or the one who brought in the guy who's now the head of the department. Of course it's not in their interest for these images to be released. Yeah, and then I think, well, but it's my interest and in our interest for us to decide which images are worth looking at or not. And there's another problem with images like this. We have almost nothing that is accessible from the Western archives. This is rare, this is very special. It looks like shit, but it's very special. But we have a trove from the Eastern archives. And there's always like the miracle and everyone, when one of the Eastern former communist countries decides we should limit access to our former Stalinist archives. They say, no, don't do that, you must be open. But what happens when we have access to just one side and see all the terrible things they are doing and have no access to the other side? I'm not saying that the BND did the same terrible things that Stasi did, but the BND was certainly breaking our laws as well. But it does look more innocent because we only have access to a very terrible looking archive. And if we look to West Germany, it's like nothing there, must be fine. And that's a terrible thing. And there's a lot wrong with that, yeah. So I'm almost at the end, I was rushing through, oh sorry. But so I can show you two, just because I was too quick from the Czech archive, two videos, audio isn't important. Oh sorry, maybe that is not going to work. It seemed things escalated much quicker in Cheers are then. Oh sorry, sorry, sorry. Life in the Cheers at RR must have been very dangerous. There's weapons everywhere, but the best thing comes now. Who would carry something like that there? Or, and just if you wonder how, that's a very long film, that's just a short part of it. If you're ever attacked by someone with a chair. Yeah, it's not important, the audio is terrible. So that's like the sixth or seventh time he shows that. And now he shows it again. And then it's going to be used, but look closely how it's used, the technique they just learned. So yeah, so okay, do this the next time you're attacked by someone with a chair. Yeah, so, okay. Now he's going to be attacked by a chair. Watch carefully, he implements it quite properly. Well, he didn't really look. And things always, there's this long film and always escalates very quickly. And then here's the most, two very long shots and you're supposed to spot them that are unnecessarily long. So of course they find the black guy smuggling. And he explains him now in English, well, do you have more like that or so? And he says, no, no, no, no. And still the porn is still in the shot, you know. And then he tells him, yeah, but it's going to be very serious if you don't confess now. And the black guy says, no, I don't have anything to confess. Now that the guy on the left gets suspicious very soon. Look at him. Yeah, yeah. It's very suspicious, this black young man. Doesn't want to sign his confession. So yeah, he gets suspicious. Very, very, very suspicious. Very suspicious. And fortunately the cameraman made the move to the left so not to zoom in on the penis. No, no, he doesn't have anything. So, but it turns out, it turns out he has something because he's black and suspicious looking, you know. See? Oh, he's moving his arm. So it turns out his arm is not broken. And sorry, that was somewhat long but I rushed through everything else quickly. But for some reason he hides batteries in his cast. So he, well, he couldn't hide there. So he could bring in the watches but you better hide the batteries, you know that, because that's, ooh. So, yeah, any questions? Thank you. Maybe before- I hope you got what you paid for, I don't know. Maybe before we start the questions and answers, everybody who wants to leave, leave now. We're going to take one minute so that you can leave and all the others who want to stay have it quiet for the Q&A. And remember to, you know, use the rating system. Oh, I brought postcards, if you want to. Because we have to make fun of them as much as we can. I feel like a star. It's all the same motif but take as many as you want, if you want any. Thank you. With a microphone, I guess. There are two microphones for the questions and answers. No four even if you need them. One, two, and we have questions from the internet. Five seconds. Okay, so we will start with you. Yes, just a short question please. First of all, thanks for the wonderful talk. It was very, very interesting. Can you give us the title of your book please? Oh yeah, it's pretty much top, so Google my name. It's available in your local bookstore or if you want Amazon. It's still available but not that many copies left so you should all get it as soon as possible. And it's just top secret and then Simon Menner or just Menner. My family doesn't write that many books. Thank you. Over here. Would you be so kind to show us back that photo with the Coyote ugly and American flag because I thought I saw Yugoslav Air Transport logo on the, yes, yacht. There you see it. Oh yeah, here. He flew with, now it's called Air Serbia but yeah. That must have been the reason. Yeah, it must have. I just wanted to check that out. Thanks. Sure. We have a question from the internet. Yes, Frankie too is asking how does this compare to today's surveillance? The problem is in a way that's a treasure trove but it's a very weird one. If I could decide freely choose what material to look at I would definitely try to look at the last two weeks of NSA surveillance like we all would. But that is as close. Unfortunately that's as close as we can get to this kind of material. And, but keep in mind back in its days the Stasi was as sophisticated, at least as sophisticated as the BND. They were, in fact, they were more advanced in the technologies they used. And the Stasi would definitely use the same techniques BND and CIA and everyone else uses today. They would try to listen in on our phone conversations. That might not be the right material to look at from a technological point of view but I think this material is very interesting and important if you want to find something out about their state of mind and which is absurd. But keep in mind, so the excuse you hear from the NSA they just want to protect the law and that's why they're breaking the law. That's an excuse you regularly find with the Stasi as well. And you find parallels and that's why I think it's very important to look at this material even though it's very old. But back then, so the whole archive consists somewhere between one and two million photographs which is absurdly little. If you think that the system was in operation for almost 40 years, there's 50,000 pictures a year. They had 85,000 agents and from the day standards that's nothing but today they would be far more sophisticated I guess. Thank you, we have a question over there. Is that a question? Yeah, so firstly, thank you for your talk. So you showed that some of this archive and information had been destroyed or at least attempts were made to destroy it and much of it was but there was still a lot left for you to look through. What happens in future generations when given that now surveillance is done all digitally? You said that the Stasi had some number of weeks from when the wall fell when they had to actually disband and they had time to destroy things. Given now how quickly and easy it is to erase digital information, what do you say to the people coming after you in future generations who might want to try and find similar things in dissolved surveillance organizations? I mean, are they completely stuffed? Unless there's going to be a revolution there and not going to be able to look at anything, that would be my guess. Because you need this abrupt shift in the whole system that pretty much decapitates this operation and so they lost everything and now it's frozen in time. And the guy at the BND told me, well, it's up to us to decide what we reveal and whatnot because we have a veto. Of course, nothing is then revealed ever. And so as long as this stays the policy and it is the policy currently everywhere from what I understand, you're not going to be able to look at anything. I'm not very optimistic in that respect. Neither am I. Thank you. Hello, thanks for your talk. How did you decide what phases to anonymize and which not to anonymize? And besides the Czech Republic archive, with the Czech images, I did it because with those images, and that's weird, you can do whatever you want, which is terrible in a way. The Stasi images, the archive had to decide it and they had to decide it on the basis. Once you, when you work in an official position on the German law, when you work in an official position in times of historical importance like that, you lose your privacy rights. You don't share the same privacy rights. So once we could find written evidence that a person shown in the image was working for the Stasi, like him or her, they lost the right of privacy. If the slightest doubt remained, it had to be pixeled. So it wasn't done by me. So German privacy rights are very strict. Thank you. Sure. Just a quick question. You said when you talked about surveillance, watching each other and surveilling each other, that this would be something like the highest state of surveillance. But in a sense, don't you think there's now a much higher state and also that before things were much more clear, everybody knew that there was a regime trying to stay in power and tried to put down everybody to kick him off. But now wouldn't it be a situation where they don't even have to break the law? They just make it legal to survey. We can see in France now with the law on intelligence that passed just after the Charlie murders. And now we got the murders again. And you got people that have to stay in their home because the intelligence has said that they might protest and they don't have to go through a judge. So they're actually making it legal and not even have to break the law. And also we're at a stage where people actually surveil each other. That's Facebook today. Yeah, somehow. And the problem, and the general problem with surveillance operations, I would argue, and I hope that here someone is here from the BND and they come forward and I give a talk to them because I would really like to find out. So please, my email was there. The thing is, I would argue that this type of surveillance cannot work. What you're trying to find proof for is a state of mind, is thoughts, is not something you did, but some things you think about or you think of you might wanna do. And photography, I am a photographer. I know how bad photography is. You were looking at images of landscape where no sniper is visible and each one of you saw it. That's how bad photography is as an evidence. And this can be proof for everything, and nothing could be proof. They don't need photography now. If you look what happened in France, they just write a paper to the private police and he just says, okay, they're dangerous and tells them you have to stay at home because they're not being approached. But still they need proof or evidence for something like that. Maybe not, but the weird thing is, now you leave behind such a trail of evidence yourself that could be read somewhere in the future. What happens in 10 years when in the US like with smoking, drinking isn't socially acceptable anymore? What happens to you then with your Facebook entry that's 20 years old then? It's a weird system. It's a, yeah, but. We have another question from the internet. Yes, somebody from the internet from IRC is asking if you have tried to contact other agencies. Yeah, like the BND, which was not very successful. And with these spies taking pictures of spies, I tried with the British archive. I know these pictures still exist. I know where they exist, but sorry. And with the Czech Republic, I was asked by the Goethe Institute to approach them. But that was very difficult. It's too lengthy to explain now. It was very difficult working with them language-wise and because of the structure of the archive itself. But they were very open. And so if you want to do more research on something like this, go to Czech Republic first because it's much easier to work with them on a bureaucratic level than with the Germans. But the Germans are in a way more organized. Well, that's the Germans. It's the Germans. Your question. Oh, no. How hard was it to get the material, although it's not classified anymore? How much time did you invest? The hardest time was the waiting periods in between requests because it's German bureaucracy takes forever. And I'm quite sure I'm from West Germany, but now I have a very huge file in this archive, I think, because they compile everything. So they keep track of every picture you're looking at. It is a... But the funny thing, it's not hard at all. You can do it as well. You don't have to be a researcher. And the archive considers research a basic human right, which I learned then. And it's a very convenient thing. And there are some elderly former Stasi agents who spend their retirement researching something, something, they can do it. And the weird thing was that most of the picture, no one's looked at before. That could be proven because they keep track of everything. So, but it's very easy. It's a very lengthy process, but very easy. When you decided to duck the archives, did you have to apply for a certain... Well, for a certain corner in the archive, or could you just walk in and say, show me all your pictures? No, no, no. It was very... They were very open. They might have closed behind me somewhat. Because for them, it was strangely overwhelming, the amount of feedback they got after my book came out. And they want to be left alone, I think, in a way. You have to formulate it quite clearly. And... What exactly? Your name or what you want to look at? A theme. But for me, since this was new back then, for them as well, it was like surveillance and photography, which is a very broad topic. Now they receive quite a few requests that stated, we want to see what Simon Mena saw, and they don't accept something like this. So you have to come up with something more clever. And how much time did you spend in that dungeon? Well, it took some three years on and off, but it's mostly waiting in between. But be patient if you want to do something like that. Okay, your question? Modern state agencies, including NSA and the BND, have this mentality of collected all passive intelligence and has this ability to minimize the impact on the damage and that there's no human eyes, say, looking at specific pieces of surveillance. Of course, we know it's not true. And they can zero in when they want to. But this makes it very difficult, I think, as an archivist, how do you try to understand the state of mind when you have so much data, possibly unprocessed data, and how do you get into the mind of filtering through this bureaucratic censorship of not just no documents, but 100 million documents? Yeah, one has to be very careful with such material because you look through their eyes. And that can be dangerous. And that's why I try not to provide that much, quote, in quotes, background information because the background information on most of the images is text compiled by the Stasi agents themselves. So it's, there's already guilty or not guilty written in the text. And I don't want to look at these pictures through their eyes. But still, I find it very revealing to look at the raw material and the Stasi would have collected everything in bulk if they would have been able. They opened every parcel to East Germany, every letter. And they were, once paranoia-wise, they were several steps ahead of the NSA. They had a university and when you were studying there, you could do your PhD, but you were not allowed to keep the notes you took during the day. They had to be locked into lockers that had doors on two sides. So you locked them in, they were copied at night, and you were not allowed to keep your PhD thesis because the moment you wrote it, it was classified top secret. And that's paranoia. It really is paranoia. And so, yeah, well, the thing is, I cannot prove it. And that's the problem with the whole thing that one side remains closed. You cannot prove otherwise. And I guess my guess would be they're quite happy with this situation that you cannot prove otherwise. Because like this, they can always say, no, we did something else. Wow, we can't tell you, but it's not like this. And it's always very vague, but from a state of mind, I think it was the same. Over there. Yeah, what's actually the copyright of these pictures? Are they public domain? Can I use them for internet memes? No. And fortune? Well, so most of the pictures are on my website in a slow resolution, which the archive doesn't like, but it's there. The problem with the, there's a law that covers this archive. It's not part of the archive sphere in Germany. It has its own law. And the law was written early in 90s by lawmakers. We all know them and love them. And they never thought about the fact that an artist might come along and show them. So the law covers publication. You were free, once you got access to the material by the archive, you were allowed to publicize it. Nothing else has stated, but you're not allowed to hand over the files. And I had lengthy debates with the archive, what that could mean, because they said, well, when you have it on your website, that's you hand out the files. And I said, no, it's publicizing it. No, no, no, no, no, no. And I said, well, what's the difference? We don't really know, but we, well, so, yeah. Tricky, tricky. And there's so much, so many people copied it from my website, so it's out there and gone, which I think is good. Having a look at my watch, I think we have one more question here and two here, so. And I'm here the next three days, so look at me. I might not remember your faces, but you might remember my bald head, so talk to me. We'll start here. Were you able to access files other than images, like audio recordings of the phone surveillance, for example? Ah, that's a very tricky thing. You could listen to those, but getting them is almost impossible, because the German privacy laws, again, and their argument is, well, they could give you something, because whenever you speak, you could reveal something private. And that's their argument, even though you might be Erich Honecker or Helmut Kohl or something like that, but still, it could be private, what you're saying, and that's why they could never release something and you would never be allowed to release it stating that's Erich Honecker, because it could be private. So it's a somewhat strange law, but no one's going to change it any more. And the last question over here. Well, yeah, I'm a bit interested where you always know what is shown by the photographs, because were there captions like spying on spy or thought you about an explanation by yourself? It's gazillions of kilometers of files and just a very few photographs. So there's always a huge amount of background information. And the greatest thing, and why I'm very, the people are absolutely thankful towards other, it was all only ladies, working at the archive, really at the archive, handing me the files and giving me copies, because the most important thing, and that's the true, whenever you want to work with an archive, the trickiest part is, how do you find something you don't know exists, because you can't ask for. I'm really looking for, is there a birthday party with them? You will never ask for something like this. But once you've earned the trust of the people working at the archive, they provide you and provided me with these images, because they knew in which direction I was looking for material. And there was always, in most cases, there was background information. Oh, I didn't include, there's a weird set of a swan, which I didn't include in the talk. There's the famous, it's a set of four images of a dead swan. It was, it's only known that it was found in a vault that was owned by Erich Mierke, the head of Stasi personally. It's four images of a grave of a dead swan with a GDR flag around it. And that's very famous for being the biggest mystery in the Stasi files, because nothing can be found about these images. So I didn't include them in the talk, sorry, sorry. But it's a dead swan, it's very mysterious, must have been important. So thank you, Simon, very, very much. Thank you.