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Carmen Weisskopf: When Assange went into the Ecuadorian embassy, there were always police and activists standing outside, which was very intense. Then someone on 4chan came up with the idea of sending pizza to the embassy, which was a nice way to introduce some normality to the situation. Then he was granted asylum and people started sending taxis to take him to the airport. That got us thinking of how we could intervene in the situation and introduce some normality, which we also hoped would get people to think about the systems they're engaging in.
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We had a bunch of the foam you put in pillows, and we cut bits up and put different stuff inside—a Samsung phone that took a photo every ten seconds and uploaded it to our website, a battery pack to give the phone 40 hours charge rather than four, and a box containing a Swiss to English converter and a charger.You didn't want to put anything else in the box?
No. We also didn't know whether the parcel would be taken out of the system and looked at, so we didn't want to put in anything other than what we needed. The one thing we didn't want to happen was for the embassy security to be afraid of the package.

Yes, we emailed him.Did you think it was going to make it?
No, not really. We made three because we were worried it wouldn't work. The plan was to send the first and, if it was taken out, send the second one through a different channel. We didn't expect it to just go through. I've looked over all the photos and could see nobody really looked at the address. We thought there would be alarms going off—not only for Julian Assange, but also for all parcels going to embassies. I thought they would handle it differently, but it was just handled like regular mail.There were a lot of black images. Were you expecting that or did you think the phone was broken?
It's always boggy technology when you work with cell phones and we were nervous quite often. We were expecting a lot of black, but we could also see its location. We knew we had movement, so that helped a bit.
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We were absolutely out of our minds. We were in Zurich and London, connected by Skype, and everyone was so happy. It's really what we hoped would happen. Everyone was so happy because it was such an intense two days.He's a pretty controversial figure. What do you think about him?
Yeah, his charges are severe. I think that he's on the forefront of debate between open and closed systems, and it's important not to forget that he stands for something important. People might not like him on a personal level, but it's unfair for them to discredit his fights.Did you expect him to write about Bradley Manning, Aaron Swartz, and all the other stuff he put on the cards?
No, we were really surprised. We just asked him to show us a view from the embassy, which he might not have had permission to do. We felt really honored that he apparently took time to think about what he'd do with the camera when it arrived. And he obviously found a way to perform in front of it in a way that suited him. We expected him to use the stage for political messages because he's an activist, but I feel like he did it in a very personal way, especially with the wild cats.Yeah, what were the cats about?
We couldn't really tell, but it made me happy to see them.

We never expected that, either. We were really happy because it became quite clear that people wanted to follow this thing, thinking, I've been staring at this live image for 12 hours and I don't know why. There was something really fascinating and enticing, but they couldn't define what it was exactly.
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No, not at all. We've tried to take hacking out of the computer and into culture. I don't think Anonymous would be interested in talking to us in that sense. But we try to take the same thinking and apply it to other systems on a conceptual level.WikiLeaks tweeted you when the parcel was being delivered. Were they supportive?
No, not as far as I know. We didn't really talk to each other beforehand. They did warn Assange that there was a package and they wanted him to be able to follow it. We hoped they'd be able to understand the work, but we're not sure they did.That's a shame. What does the "bitnik" in your group's name mean?
We like the "nick" on the end because it's sort of futuristic but from the 70s—the future that's somehow in the past. The "bit" comes from one of the smallest entities in a computer—the bits and bytes. A lot of people think it comes from the beatniks, but no, we don't take that many drugs.What's the reasoning behind the project?
It's questioning how much transparency we have in a working democratic society, who controls what information, who has access to what information. We'd love to understand what's going on in this world.Thanks, Carmen. Follow Helena on Twitter: @helena_williamsMore Assange:Everyone Poops but Only Julian Assange Doesn't FlushSwedish Court Transcripts Featuring Julian AssangeA Chat with WikiLeaks Former Spokesperson