Do you know that the British and US embassies in Berlin have active spy stations capable of listening to all communication in the area known as government district? Their spying structures are physically hidden in the buildings of the embassies and are comprised of antenas  and other devices capable of capturing communication signals, even from live mobile phone conversations.

Artists Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter were invited by the Swiss embassy, just next door to US and UK buildings, to perform a work of art that would question the obscure powers of NSA and GCHQ in a very ironic way. Their answer to the invitation was a project called “can you hear me?” with anonymous open connection to wifi network through antenas installed on the roof of the Swiss embassy, and the possibility for anyone to talk back to NSA and GCHQ. In Jud’s own words: “Well, if they’re listening … let’s talk to them.”

Mathias Jud did an interesting TED talk about this and other installations, and said that for the “can you hear me?” project, they received more than 15,000 messages, including:

“@NSA My neighbours are noisy. Please send a drone strike.”

Day 73: Do you want to talk to NSA and GCHQ?