ALL CREATURES WELCOME

Screening of the documentary »ALL CREATURES WELCOME« during the Glühweinprogrammiernacht 2018.

Together with the filmmaker and the slogan »use hacking as a mindset« we immerse in a documentary adventure game and explore the world of Komputerfrieks, as they used to call themselves at the inaugural meeting of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC for short) in 1981. We come upon an open, free-spirited society. The events of the CCC are a kind of utopian real-world reflection of the virtual spectrum. We encounter angels, activists, robots, coders and makers. We learn what a hack is, why lockpicking can be important, how a cellular system works. We dive into the game and become part of the community that is as inclusive as it is sophisticated.

Still outside of this collective the challenges are immense in an era, in which political certainties and institutions increasingly erode. Models of governance, economics, social order, technology and science are being put into question 24/7. With the internet’s rules of conduct, national laws are being repealed and transformed into global structures. While the worldwide web would structurally actually allow a radical renewal of democracy, changing it from representation to participation, more and more states are drifting towards authoritarian societies in political reality. In the course of that process, en passant the largest surveillance machinery of human history has been created.

We see how the hacker culture meets these challenges and what inner contradictions it encounters. We learn that our lives are not determined by general, given truths but actually through the way we work, develop ourselves, suffer or dream. The events of the CCC become a possible blueprint of social upheaval. Self-organization, freedom of expression and critical discussion merge in a colorful, polyphonic chorus apart from social norms and capitalist constraints: »Be excellent to each other!«