8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
1/65
Christian Nold
Mobile Vulgus
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
2/65
Published and distributed by
Book Works, 19 Holywell Row,
London EC2A 4JB
www.bookworks.org.uk
Copyright text, photographs and audio
© Christian Nold, 2001.
Image copyright © Keith Still, Foster-
Miller, Do or Die, Robert Knight,
Charles Pycraft, Kirkland Airforce base,
US Department of Defence,Southwest
Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas
swri.org, 2001.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be
reproduced, copied or transmitted save
with written permission from the
publisher in agreement with the
copyright holders or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.The
publishers have made every effort to
contact all copyright holders. If proper
acknowledgement has not been made,
we ask copyright holders to contact us,
so that full acknowledgement may be
given in subsequent editions.
ISBN 1 870699 56 4Mobile Vulgus is one of four
publications commissioned and edited
by Craig Martin for Warm Seas as part
of Open House/Book Works Projects
1998-2001.
Open House/Book Works Projects is
supported by the National Lottery
through the Arts Council of England
and the Henry Moore Foundation.
Book Works is funded by the Arts
Council of England and London Arts.Designed by Jason Rainbird
with Christian Nold.
Printed by Offset Colour Print Limited,
Southampton.
Christian Nold would like to thank:
Bruna Gagliardi, Inge Nold, Mike
Holmes, Jason Rainbird, Duncan
Whitley, Joe Tunmer,Keith Still, Ian
Hunt,Kameran Etebar,Dr. John
Alexander, Javier, John Drury, Do or
Die, all at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol,
Charles Pycraft and all the people on
the Mayday and Mayday White
Overalls mailing lists who have
contributed their ideas and images.
Special thanks to Craig Martin, Jane
Rolo and Maria Fusco who have not
only edited and published this book
but also organised the test events in
Bristol and London.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
3/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
4/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
5/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
6/65
% UAV - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
These weapons are the future of crowd
control, allowing the remote
deployment of a whole range of non-
lethal anti-personnel weapons, from
noxious odorants, caltrops, dye
markers and tear gas to electronic
noise generators.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
7/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
8/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
9/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
10/65
18
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
11/65
In the weeks leading up to the event the
politicians and police had beenconspiring to intimidate people with
their ‘zero tolerance policy’ and threats
of tear gas and plastic bullets.
Surprisingly the actual day started quietly with a number of autonomous
protests occurring throughout London. The text messages I was receiving from
people at the other actions all sounded positive.We decided to go to Hyde Park
to join up with a group of people busily building cardboard hotels for the
homeless as a gesture against the expensive hotels overlooking us on all sides.
At 3:00 we broke off and walked towards Oxford Street where the turn out was
much better. In anticipation of trouble the main road had been thoroughly
cleaned for once and all loose street furniture removed to stop it being thrown
or used to build barricades. All the large corporate chains had boarded up their
main facades with chipboard not even forgetting the tiny branded signs that
stuck out into the street.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
12/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
13/65
Screenshots of the 1995 version of Legion. A shimmering stream of
steady panic pushes towards a tiny
black doorway. The movement happens
in staggered pressure-releasing waves.
In cramped spaces, units are stuck
indefinitely, unable to enter the surge.
Others skip lightly around slower ones,
moving up to three times faster.
Individuals become hard to track as
identical pixel afterimages are
immediately filled by the following
unit.One in, one out.
M E N T A L B A T T L E F I E L D S
24
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
14/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
15/65
In 1998 the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department developed its own sophisticatedsimulation. Their program, the ‘Commander’s Interactive Training System’
proudly states that it has developed directly out of riot officers’ first-hand
experiences of the Rodney King LA riots. It simulates inner city disturbances as
seen through the eyes of an officer on the street in order to prepare platoon
commanders on how to deal with the crowd. Watching the simulation pan
across the streets towards the robotic crowd, pausing only to select a different
weapon, is reminiscent of a large number of computer games. The only shock
comes when we zoom towards the crowd and half of them are on their hands
and knees apparently knocked down by non-lethal weapons. Developed in
cooperation with Lt. Charles Heal, one of the pioneers of non-lethal weapons,
this no doubt explains why the program makes available such an extraordinary
arsenal of soft-kill weapons:
MK 4 & 9 OC (pepper) spray
12 gauge beanbag
12 gauge rubber fin stabilised round
12 gauge sting ball
40mm foam rubber and wood batons
40mm stinger
Hand thrown sting ballHand thrown flash bang
Commander’s Interactive Training System
M E N T A L B A T T L E F I E L D S
28
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
16/65
The British program CACTUS (Command And Control Training and PlanningUsing Knowledge Based Simulation) was used to train riot police officers at the
Public Order Training Centre in Hounslow in the early to mid 1990’s. CACTUS
uses a bird’s eye view of digitised ordinance survey maps to simulate disorder in
real city centres. CACTUS’ approach to the crowd is to ignore the individual and
conceptualise people as being conglomerated into large unified groups. On
screen differently coloured dots represent protesters and police units while the
outer coloured arcs signify the possible transitions between the full range of
simulated behaviours:
Dispersing, demonstrating, sitting down, standing still, standing around angrily,
demonstrating, marching, marching angrily, marching with arms, taunting crowd,
dismantling building site, vandalising and looting, volatile, very volatile, attacking
police, throwing heavy missiles
While graphically less sophisticated than the American system, CACTUS is
operationally far superior since it doesn’t just simulate but also visualises real
life crowd disorder as it happens. Simulation and real life have been merged into
one unified control interface of buttons and text boxes. CACTUS allows the
incident commander to operate remotely, hundreds of kilometres away from the
actual street disorder.All the information from the CCTV cameras in the streets
and on helicopters is fed in through fibre optic lines, collated and then filtered.
Once compiled with tactical reports from the street, the system allows the
operator to issue live commands which drip back down the command chain to
the individual police officer in the street. These officers have a special
communication system built straight into their riot helmets which only allows
them to receive commands.
CACTUS
M E N T A L B A T T L E F I E L D S
30
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
17/65
32
M E N T A L B A T T L E F I E L D S
CACTUS. This flowchart forms the
central part of the behavioural
network used to simulate the actions
of each riot police officer.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
18/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
19/65
36
We were following the samba band,
whistling and dancing in the streetswhen suddenly on reaching the end of
one road we were confronted by several
lines of riot police. By the time the main
bulk of the protesters had caught upwith us, the police had managed to
reinforce their cordon with mounted
officers. Distracted by the carnival
atmosphere, nobody noticed the wayanother two lines stealthily sealed off
the road behind us. They cleverly laid a
trap for us and we walked straight into
it. Now, we are trapped here with about
a thousand people in one narrow street.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
20/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
21/65
R E A L I T Y T R A I N I N G
40
This is not Oxford Street but the Public Order Training Centre in Hounslow
where every British police officer receives military-style training for at least two
days every six months.Today roughly one hundred police officers are taking partin what they call ‘reality training’.The group is split into two, with the larger unit
of seventy, chasing the thirty ‘protesters’ around the purpose-built compound.
The training area is laid out like a peculiarly English film set with roads called
Victoria and Albert Road lined with brick facades posing as strangely familiar
shops: Floyds Bank, Stavicker Sports, Heath Pub and Burger Queen. Only one or
two of the buildings in the whole compound are constructed in three dimen-
sions to allow the riot police to practice house clearance. Behind the High Street
is an area of special obstacles all grouped together. A mass of truck tyres piled
up at the entrance of a narrow alley simulates a protester barricade just so that
it can be broken down again using a special bullet proof JCB with an extra-long
pronged scoop. On the other side of the road a single underground carriage
stands next to a solitary football stand, awaiting crowd dispersion practice.
Adjoining the main compound are a number of halls containing freestandingprison cells used for restraint scenarios as well as a shooting range for lethal and
non-lethal weapons. The floor is littered with 40mm shell casings leading to a
disconcerting row of severed headless targets lined up at the far end of the hall.
The final piece of training technology also turns out to be the most evocative.
Standing in front of me is a tall and narrow metal frame from which a mass of
blue boxing bags are hung.These sacks hang from above head height all the way
down to my calves and are arranged in offset rows of 5 wide and 10 deep block-
ing my vision. Each bag is filled with sand to weigh the same as an average
human. I am told to run through. Pushing in, I am pounded by hard dull impacts
all over my body as the bags swing towards my face.This is what it must feel like
when the command to charge comes through on the earpiece: the tinted visor
flips down and you are forced to barge into the heavy faceless mob.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
22/65
% Public Order Training CentreThe whole of the compound is covered
in CCTV cameras allowing replays of
the day’s action from a wide variety of
angles.
! A ‘brick’ thrown by ‘protestors’ at
the Public Order Training Centre.
, Public Order Training Centre
Most of the shield training occurs in
the evening and goes on into the night
in order to prepare the police for
fighting in darkness.
R E A L I T Y T R A I N I N G
42
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
23/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
24/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
25/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
26/65
R E A L I T Y T R A I N
I N G
50
A major concern is that the presence of TV cameras may cause soldiers to hesitate in
their decision to use deadly force […] The use of non-lethal weapons, supported by
lethal weapons, can be more readily employed in marginal situations […] Given thereduced likelihood of fatalities or serious injuries, the reason for hesitation should be
eliminated. Dr. John Alexander, 1999
Alexander had finally found a logical use for his non-lethal technology. Realising
that existing crowd control weapons were inadequate he shifted his focus from
antimatériel weapons towards a revolutionary range of ‘soft-kill’ weapons. TV
cameras that would have previously recorded the bullet entering the head of theten year old in slow motion, would now only show fleeing or unconscious peo-
ple. Using non-lethal weapons, complex ethical decisions are removed, allowing
the military mind to concentrate on what it has been trained for.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
27/65
52
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
28/65
54
We are still trapped in Holles Street. The
double row of riot police in front of usshuffles forward and one of the officers
pushes me back with his shield. I fix my
gaze on him and notice a little CE
marking just beneath the translucent toplayer of the shield. I don’t feel reassured
by the fact that the shield conforms to
European safety standards.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
29/65
S O F T W E A P O N S
! Arwen 37. "It is meant to crack a
rib and put them in a lot of pain," said
Toronto Police Constable Bob Leighton.
Riot police are usually required to test
non-lethal weapons such as Tasers on
themselves. But Leighton states that it
would be "too dangerous" to do so
with the Arwen 37.
! The Hybrid III 50th Percentile
male dummy. Representing the
average adult male, it is used to
simulate full frontal car crashes as well
as non-lethal weapon impacts.
56
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
30/65
S O F T W E A P O N S
58
By simulating a complete family it becomes clear that the entire population is
the target for these weapons. The thin line between life and death is a narrow
statistical band drawn on graph paper with a sizeable proportion of the popula-tion falling on the wrong side. The Human Effects Advisory Panel is a body that
produces guidelines for the non-lethal weapons industry.According to their clas-
sifications a weapon is non-lethal if it incapacitates 98% of the population, has
no effect on 1%, whilst causing permanent damage to the remaining 1% — half
of whom will die. Transposing these figures to the recent Mayday protests in
London, if all those 5,000 participants were targeted, we could expect fifty per-
manent injuries of which twenty five would die.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
31/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
32/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
33/65
S O F T W E A P
O N S
64
The crowd is self-fullfiling, you need to make them go away, break up the mass,
break up the intent of the crowd and stop them feeding off each other. Dr. John
Alexander, 2001
Since the cohesion of the crowd is seen as the breeding ground for the collective
contagion it is combated with anti-viral emergency measures. The intuitive
belief is that by containing people in small pockets the contagion will run out of
hosts to spread to and die. Or by dispersing the crowd the collective contagion
might be diluted enough to leave behind dazed but rational individuals.As well
as a military officer and weapon developer, John Alexander also possesses a PhDin the experimental branch of psychology called Thantology meaning he is liter-
ally a ‘doctor of death’. His specialist knowledge of the psychological effects of
near-death experiences has allowed him to produce a hi-tech arsenal of
acoustic, optical and holographic weapons that combine the brutality of the mil-
itary with the subtlety of psychology.The resulting hybrid gives the military the
ultimate means to fight the mental/physical crowd contagion.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
34/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
35/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
36/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
37/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
38/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
39/65
76
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
40/65
Still trapped in Holles Street and the
police have closed in tightly from bothsides. We have been here for six hours, it
is getting dark and everybody is hungry
and cold. There are little rivulets of piss
flowing from the concave corners of buildings where people have been forced
to urinate.
A small group of people have started a little bonfire by the side of the road
with a few pieces of newspaper they found lying around. People are huddling
around the small fire to shield it from the wind. I hold my hands forward but
feel no heat from the tiny flames. Suddenly six riot policemen rush forward
barging through the huddled group and stamp out the fire. It takes one officer
about three seconds to put it out with his steel-capped boots. The crowd is
astonished. Boos and slow clapping. “Well done. Congratulations.” Someone alittle further along lights another match and tries to set fire to a single sheet
of paper.Again the forces of law and order rush in and stamp it out. More boos
and mock clapping. The police’s pettiness is incredible. How sad that we are
reduced to this.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
41/65
, We need more tools of non-lethal
defence; baton grabbing jaws and giant
magnets, tennis bats for returning tear
gas, interlocking shields,i tching powder
grenades, stink bombs, cream pies laced
with stinging chemicals,poo cannons,urine holding tanks connected to hand
pumps and hoses! Anonymous
protester mailing list
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
42/65
P R O T E S T T O
O L S
We march with a mission and should those in power order others to stop us, we havea right to defend our bodies as much as our message. Bodyhammer Manual, 2001
In the last couple of years shields, helmets, armour and large barriers have
started to emerge on the protester side. Made of foam, inflatable rubber,
tarpaulin and other soft materials these tools have become DIY versions of
ancient armour made for the physical contest of the modern street. Once
stacked together in a roman tortoise formation the tools create a communalbarricade that offers safety from riot batons and non-lethal projectiles. By
interlinking arms and tightly grabbing the handles of the barrier the combined
body weight of the crowd can be brought to bear against the police lines. Any
technological advantage the police may have had is neutralised as the conflict
becomes a proto-democratic scrum of pushing and shoving. Crucially the barrier
acts as a psychological tool as well as a physical blockage. Activists who have
used the tactic comment that the shield wall becomes a visual divider that
blocks the sight of individuals on both sides and thus depersonalises the conflict
into two opposing forces. Being unable to see each other all personal aggression
is nullified.As the human wall of polypropylene starts to push through the police
lines, accounts tell of individual officers becoming isolated and panicking.
Routeing, they break their own lines and try to reform in small defensive circles.
Barriers
82
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
43/65
People can see images on the TV news
that can't be manipulated:a mountain
of bodies that advances,seeking the
least harm possible to itself, against theviolent defenders of an order that
produces wars and misery. And the
results are visible,people understand
this, the journalists can't invent lies that
contradict the images;last but not least,
the batons bounce off the padding.
Ya Basta – White Overall Movement.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
44/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
45/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
46/65
P R O T E S T T O O L S
90
The critical aspect to moving in any shield wall formation is unison. While demonstra-
tors would discourage any individual to marshal a march, a form of organisation is
necessary. Bodyhammer Manual, 2001
The human barrier is only effective as long as it remains unbroken, which
requires considerable coordination and organisation. The dilemma is how to
achieve this unison without adopting the kind of rigid hierarchical systems used
by the military style opposition.
Unless it is possible to prepare and practice these tactics ahead of time, the best way
is the use of simple commands that can be shouted, including warnings of what is
ahead for those who cannot see. For keeping tight in a march at any pace, the best
method is a drum near the front […] or the calling off of steps, one, two, one, two...
Bodyhammer Manual, 2001
The protest manual proposes a system where every member is forced to take
responsibility for themselves as well as the group. Command has become an
autonomous system with no overall control. This anarchic method still allows
complex coordinated manoeuvres to be carried out because the crowd is united
by a regular internal stepping rhythm. Mobile samba bands work tightly with the
crowd to provide the necessary timekeeping drums. The polyrhythmic structure
of samba consists of many rhythms played by separate parts of the band and the
‘beat’ only emerges from the way these rhythms engage and communicate with
each other. Samba offers a concrete vision of the relationship between the indi-
vidual and the group where the individual is not forced to compromise their
identity, but rather the collective only functions because of its internal counter-
Coordination
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
47/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
48/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
49/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
50/65
Mayday 2001, near Oxford Street.
A riot police officer stands helpless in
front of the £50,000 Jaguar he has
failed to protect from ‘vandalism’.
When we smash a window we aim to destroy the thin veneer of legitimacy that sur
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
51/65
T R A S
H I N G
100
When we smash a window, we aim to destroy the thin veneer of legitimacy that sur-
rounds private property rights. At the same time, we exorcise that set of violent and
destructive social relationships which has been imbued in almost everything around
us. We contend that property destruction is not a violent activity unless it destroys
lives or causes pain in the process. By this definition, private property – especially
corporate private property – is itself infinitely more violent than any action taken
against it. [...] By destroying private property, we convert its limited exchange value
into an expanded use value. A storefront window becomes a vent to let some fresh air
into the oppressive atmosphere of a retail outlet. ACME Collective, Seattle N30
Reaching up to grasp the golden arches feels strange. The yellow plastic is hol-
low and flimsy not like I had expected. The bottom of the M has been shaped
with just enough depth to get a proper handhold. I pull myself up and fold my
legs around the object. I am swinging free, suspended from the world’s most
famous brand. For one moment a corporate symbol solidified as a physical enti-
ty that could be grasped and ripped down. For a split second a solution appeared,
a direct way of dealing with the amorphous nature of global capital. Frustratedat the lack of corporate accountability, these destructive tactics aim to create
economic pressure, but more importantly generate a sense of personal and pub-
lic empowerment. Even these minor displays demonstrate the potential for real
transformation outside the narrow constraints of symbolic protest. Spaces,
property and institutions that previously seemed distant and inviolatable sud-
denly reveal their vulnerability. Even things written in stone can be transformed.
After N30, many people will never see a shop window or a hammer the same way
again. The potential uses of an entire cityscape have increased a thousand-fold..
ACME Collective, Seattle N30
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
52/65
102
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
53/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
54/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
55/65
Antimatériel Mobilisation System Version 1
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
56/65
110
A N T I M A T É R I E L W E A
P O N S
110
A bleak expanse of stone, concrete and aluminum around the recently built
riverside leisure development in Bristol became the target for our initial test.The
supposedly public space of the Millennium Square which was built to the same
dimensions as the underground car park just beneath its surface, seemed like a
fitting place to reintroduce the crowd.
The evening of the event turns out to be blustery and rainy, yet twenty to thirty
hardy people brave the weather to come out into the street and take their whistles.A man with a megaphone appears and gives some general information to
the assembled group. He finishes by pressing a button on the megaphone he is
holding and immediately the crass distorted sound of the crowd bursts out of the
cone.The talking and laughing of the people mixes with the occasional shout. The
protest crowd moves closer and closer until the audio perspective shifts towards
the samba band whose drum sounds ricochet off inner-city walls. The amplified
noise echoes sharply across the huge empty expanse of the Bristol water front.
Suddenly the sound of all the whistles joins and the edge between the real and
recorded crowd blurs. Everybody moves towards Pero’s Footbridge and starts
jumping to the rhythm of the music, unaware that it has been modified to match
the resonant frequency of the bridge.There is a good atmosphere as people smile
enjoying their own physical exertion as well as the absurdity of the whole
spectacle. The bridge reacts slowly with dull thumps. Unfortunately the majorityof people are jumping ineffectively using alternate feet which dampens the full
force of their footfalls. Despite this, the bridge is vibrating laterally and swaying.
The jumping continues for a further five minutes until it is time to move off to the
second target, the silver dome of the ‘Imaginarium’. Moving closer the xenon
strobes can be seen flashing in the distance reflecting off the dome’s metallic
surface. Once assembled in front of the flashing strobes the jumping continues
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
57/65
112112
with more vigour until everybody is exhausted and the security guards arrive to
break up the event.
Conclusions
While neither of the structures fully reacted or collapsed, the amount of
vibration generated was considerable. The pre-recorded protest audio proved to
be an efficient and evocative crowd trigger that synchronised the movement of
the people to the crucial frequencies. Unfortunately the use of a handheld
megaphone placed too much emphasis on the person with the device. The next
version of the tool should offer a more anonymous, atomised way of projecting
the audio. The most problematic issue was that the participants lacked any
common vision and participated through curiosity rather a common desire to
function together. It had been naive to assume that a proto-collective could be
formed without prior group planning and training. What was needed was a split
of the tool into two parts: training and operations.
A N T I M A T É R I E L W E A
P O N S
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
58/65
Modular Components
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
59/65
116
The CD at the back of this book
contains audio recordings taken from
the streets of London during the
Mayday 2001 protests.The recording
have been specially modified tofunction as a calibration/training tool
as well as a crowd synchronisation
tool.
For personal training an innocuous
portable CD player is used to listen to
the mini CD on headphones. For
collective events the player is
connected to the FMtransmitter/megaphone system. A
repeat play facility allows the setting
of audio loops.
Note: Due to technical limitations of
the repeat play facility of most CD
players there is a slight delay on
looping an audio track. In order to
achieve perfect loops use a DJ CD
player or digitally transfer the audio
onto another medium that loops easi ly
(mindisk).
A N T I M A T É R I E L W E A
P O N S
116
Mini CD Portable CD player
116
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
60/65
gauge is the length between two supporting joists. Using the chart on the right
th d ff ti t f th t l f Th h d d
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
61/65
120
A N T I M A T É R I E L W E A
P O N S
120
we can then read off an estimate of the natural frequency. The shaded area
between 1.8Hz and 3Hz indicates the range of sustainable human movement
from slow walking all the way up to frantic pogoing. If the structure falls withinthis range then it is a possible target.The ideal target would have a span of over
25 metres and be constructed from low weight material with low dampening.
Perfect examples of this are bridges but also open plan offices, which are
particularly vulnerable due to their lack of partitions.
Collective Action
Music is not dangerous, it’s the people. Music can be as loud as you like, ok you get
blast effects but they can’t be worse than explosions, and buildings are designed to
withstand explosions. No, its the actual effect that people would be able to cause.
Kameran Etebar, engineering lecturer
Brought together through the announcement of a crowd action, the anonymousindividuals gather and recombine into the physical collective. They have
brought with them the modular components needed to construct the protest
tools. Once assembled and deployed, everything is in place. With the audio
system stuck to the ceiling and safe from any ground level interference, there is
no more need for any leaders, organisers or martyrs. The objects become the
focus of the crowd, activating the latent adrenaline and reconstructing the
mobility of the vulgus.The amorphous notion of ‘people power’becomes a hyper literal vision of kinesthetic force that empowers through concrete results. By
standing still an average person weighing around 65 kilograms exerts a force of
650 newtons straight down onto the floor.
Once mobilised into jumping with both feet that force is multiplied almost seven
times If fifty people jump simultaneously this force produces 23 tonnes of
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
62/65
122
A N T I M A T É R I E L W E A
P O N S
122
times. If fifty people jump simultaneously, this force produces 23 tonnes of
pressure which is the same weight as thirty-three cars stacked one on top of the
other. With every drum beat, these tonnes of pressure piledrive into the groundat the resonant frequency. Seeing, hearing or feeling even the slightest response
from the structure initiates a feedback loop between the building and its
occupants which increases the feeling of communal action.The amount of force
required to cause a full structural collapse is between ten to one hundred times
greater than that needed to see the first surface cracking.These warning signs are
sufficient for our purposes since they force the authorities to close down thestructure. Used in this way the tactic should pose no danger to anyone.
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
63/65
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
64/65
Mobile Vulgus CD
8/19/2019 christian-nold-mobile-vulgus-1.pdf
65/65
M O B I L E V U L G U S C D
128 Track Name Speed Frequency
01. Intro
02. Loop A 135 BPM 2.25Hz03. Loop B 135 BPM 2.25Hz
04. Loop C 135 BPM 2.25Hz
05. Loop A 144 BPM 2.40Hz
06. Loop B 144 BPM 2.40Hz
07. Loop C 144 BPM 2.40Hz
08. Loop A 153 BPM 2.55Hz
09. Loop B 153 BPM 2.55Hz10. Loop C 153 BPM 2.55Hz
11. Loop A 162 BPM 2.70Hz
12. Loop B 162 BPM 2.70Hz
13. Loop C 162 BPM 2.70Hz
14. Loop A 171 BPM 2.85HZ
15. Loop B 171 BPM 2.85HZ16. Loop C 171 BPM 2.85HZ
17. Outro