United Against

Collecteurs is thrilled to announce a series of unique records engraved on x-ray films featuring unreleased songs and audio from artists and thinkers including, Massive Attack, Noam Chomsky, Nástio Mosquito, Jónsi of Sigur Rós, Alex Somers, Pussy Riot, Cyborg Neil Harbisson, and Lord Mayor of Sheffield Magid Magid. Together with this influential group of artists and thinkers, the project, titled The Library of Dangerous Thoughts, is the start of a collaboration initiated by The University of the Underground in partnership with the digital museum Collecteurs, and the Bureau of Lost Culture to raise awareness against censorship and encourage plurality of thinking.

These previously unreleased tracks and dangerous thoughts engraved onto x-ray films are unique vinyl-type records made with audio cut onto radiography film by the Bureau of Lost Culture. X-ray records were made as an act of defiance against censorship in Cold War era Soviet Union, where they were used as an underground method of distributing prohibited music by Western, emigre and banned Russian musicians. This unforgettable cultural response to state censorship is now presented as a contemporary reminder of the not-so-distant past and housed in The Library of Dangerous Thoughts, supporting freedom of thought and countercultures.

In the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, the music people could listen to was ruthlessly controlled by the State. But a secret underground subculture of music lovers and bootleggers defied the censor. Incredibly, they built their own recording machines and used an extraordinary way of copying forbidden jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and banned Russian music onto used X-ray film which were then cut into “records.”

In recent years, there has been a notable shift in political, social, and religious attitudes in Brazil.

Brazilians say everything will be forgotten, grudges and fights should be left behind and whatever happens in carnival stays in carnival.

This is mostly true, but certain events will be harder to forget these days. Latin America’s biggest and most diverse country is leaning right and one of the biggest concerns is whether or not artistic freedom of expression is in danger.

The origin of the word “censor” can be traced to the office of censor established in Rome 443 BCE. While free speech and expression have always been a threat to established interests, whether in Ancient Rome, Medieval Christian Europe, through to the Soviet Socialist Republics of the twentieth century, censorship has a long, complicated history. Artists, journalists, and the intelligentsia are often the first victims of censoring bodies in times of war and conflict.

Though many governments and human rights defenders in Europe and the West rightly criticize the abuses perpetrated in new democracies and non-democratic countries alike, we should remember that the violent history of censorship and colonialism are closely intertwined. There is also a need to recognize the cruel suppression of Indigenous cultures, languages, artifacts, and non-written materials that have been appropriated or muted for centuries. This article proposes that censorship has evolved from its early days to the present, reacting to the ethical demand for the freedom of speech and operating in new, covert ways – ones which we must analyze and resist.

On August 28, 2015, at 3.33 pm Khaled Barakeh posted seven photos showing six dead children on his Facebook account. All of them had met their death in the Mediterranean. Under the title “Multicultural Graveyard”, Khaled’s post, as he wrote it, ran: “Last night more than 80 Syrians and Syrian-Palestinian asylum seekers have drowned in the Mediterranean close to the Libyan shores trying to reach Europe”. These images, censored by Facebook, ultimately changed the way the West viewed immigration.