Remember the Year Zero ARG??

[cicada]

...man that was good times. I spent an awful lot of time at work every day trawling through the old version of this forum to see what had been discovered over night in different time zones. ETS was literally exploding with new stuff every day. People working day and night to solve the puzzles and uncover new shit. When it all started to spill over into the real world with the graff in London and LA, the flash drives at concerts and and then the mobile phones and the secret gig in that basement in LA..... so epic.

I still have 4 zip archives of jpeg images that some guy compiled, (Exhibit 24) have yet to print it but I will turn it into a coffee table book one day.

In terms of a total vision and concept, this is the best album release for any band, ever, IMO.



Remember???????

[pigpen]

...what is Year Zero?

[BenAkenobi]

that picture's dope, who's the author?

[katara]

that picture's dope, who's the author?

I'm unsure of the author. However, I can tell part of the story about this particular piece.

In 2007, NIN played a couple of shows back-to-back at Brixton Academy in London, UK. There were Art Is Resistance flyers taped randomly around the inside of the venue. These were identical to the standard poster but for two details. Firstly, they were printed on a red or orange paper. Secondly, and more importantly, the line "Here is one thing the government wants you to forget" was instead "EC1 Kingsland Road and Old Street: Under The Bridge". Following these cryptic directions (although I think the postcode is wrong) lead to this exact painting. It's quite large, taking up the entirety of a roadside billboard. I took several photos and hung around a bit because it was just that damned awesome. The detail in this thing was insane and no image I've seen online does it justice. Anyway, while I was there, a guy drove up in a transit van and opened up the back, which was filled to bursting with very nice quality AIR posters. When he started putting them up under the bridge, I decided that I had to have one no matter what. I initiated a conversation and somehow walked home with a really awesome poster. Note that the guy was just a hired gun; he didn't seem to know anything about what he was putting up, only that he was getting paid to do it. I've never seen these posters handed out or sold anywhere, so I'm guess I'm lucky!

This image lead to the website http://www.operationswamp0000.net/, which in turn lead to http://operationchipsweep.net/. Both sites are now broken, although they probably exist in some form in the Exhibit 24 archive. From what I remember, one of these pages detailed instructions (with slightly gruesome pictures) of how to remove government-installed human chips used to track people's movements.

The painting was not one huge piece but was actually four large vertical boards. You can clearly see the seams in the first post of this topic. The painting and posters in situ were documented on the NIN tumblr a couple of years ago.
I'm not sure what happened to the majority of the pictures I took, although I uploaded a couple of them to flickr at the time which you can see here (the other two black and white images were my own personal photomanipulations which were featured on opensourceresistance.net (now defunct)).

[jessamineny]

that picture's dope, who's the author?

IIRC it was rumored to be Banksy

Edit: Here's the ETS archive after that Brixton show

[katara]

IIRC it was rumored to be Banksy

There was a similar styled mural (completely different painting) that was shown somewhere in NA. I really don't know much more than that. Anyone got any info or stories about it? Pretty sure it's the same artist.

Here's a poor quality photo: http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...y/P1010177.jpg

I seem to recall something about AIR cases (and mobiles?) being handed out. Was it at that event?

[jessamineny]

There was a similar styled mural (completely different painting) that was shown somewhere in NA. I really don't know much more than that. Anyone got any info or stories about it? Pretty sure it's the same artist.

Here's a poor quality photo: http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...y/P1010177.jpg

I seem to recall something about AIR cases (and mobiles?) being handed out. Was it at that event?

That mural was in LA.

The ammo boxes were given away out of the back of a van on an LA street in 2007. People were given a time and place to go, and the van pulled up and started handing them out. Only 60-100 are believed to exist. A handful of the ammo boxes had cell phones, where people were later contacted to go to that AIR concert in a warehouse. (That one where they pretended it was being raided by the government mid-concert.)

[katara]

That mural was in LA.

The ammo boxes were given away out of the back of a van on an LA street in 2007. People were given a time and place to go, and the van pulled up and started handing them out. Only 60-100 are believed to exist. A handful of the ammo boxes had cell phones, where people were later contacted to go to that AIR concert in a warehouse. (That one where they pretended it was being raided by the government mid-concert.)

Thanks.

I wish the whole Year Zero experience had been better documented. Of course the research on ninwiki exists, and I'm grateful that some dedicated fans were able to compile all that data. But due to the multimedia nature of the ARG, not every fragment of information is easily captured because the context of the moment is gone. The personal experiences each of us had were pretty damn special, and I feel that those who missed out *really* missed out. Not to mention that the whole online experience is now completely defunct. It's easy to forget all the tiny scraps of what happened where and what that meant to us at the time.

The Year Zero ARG made the album so much more powerful, whereas a new listener might be left cold to some of the true meanings and references in the songs. I suppose it served its purpose, and maybe that was TR's intention all along; to let the experience live on through the people who experienced it. Google searches yield the history of the ARG but it was nothing like being there and playing the game with all of you guys. 2007 (in fact, the whole 2005-2009 era) was an amazing time to be a NIN fan.

[Fadeout54321]

The Year Zero ARG made the album so much more powerful, whereas a new listener might be left cold to some of the true meanings and references in the songs. I suppose it served its purpose, and maybe that was TR's intention all along; to let the experience live on through the people who experienced it. Google searches yield the history of the ARG but it was nothing like being there and playing the game with all of you guys. 2007 (in fact, the whole 2005-2009 era) was an amazing time to be a NIN fan.

I was actually thinking about this on my way into work this morning when Survivalism came on my stereo. Living the experience of the ARG was fucking great. I cannot imagine picking this album up and listening to it without all of that fanfare. I personally would feel very confused and the songs would have very little meaning without the ARG. I think that the Exhibit 24 website was pretty awesome as it wrapped up everything. Too bad all the websites are now gone What a great time it was, i can't believe it was 8 plus years ago!

[Frozen Beach]

Here's an archive a found in an old thread. it doesn't really have nearly everything, but it has some neat stuff in it and I figured I'd link it since it's still alive
https://www.mediafire.com/?ln5rc5paaa8bw#ln5rc5paaa8bw
the image folder has a couple photos of the ammo box.

[Ryan]

I didn't follow it / didn't care

come at me bitches

[sick among the pure]

Have a tat of the AIR flag and my 24 # on my arm. It was good times.

[Halo Infinity]

I didn't follow it / didn't care

come at me bitches

While I can admit that I enjoyed reading some of it, I pretty much just focused on the album and left it at that. With that being said as well as some exceptions, it was pretty cool/fun to see the spectograms of The Presence in My Violent Heart and The Warning as well as hearing Red Horse Vector in The Great Destroyer. I also at least dialed the phone number on the back of the album before it went away too.

I guess I'm going to be listening to Year Zero a few times this week, as it's actually been quite a while since I gave it a proper listen. And as far as titles for NIN albums go, it's definitely still my most favorite one so far.

[cicada]

For sure. I have a massive zip archive that someone put together of pretty much everything in chrono order.... But it still doesn't compare to being in it at the time. In some ways it's nice to have something that existing live and dynamic in that time only, that cant just be replicated on DVD or online.

[cicada]

FYI Im pretty sure the artist of the London mural was Ekandayo

[slurfius]

For sure. I have a massive zip archive that someone put together of pretty much everything in chrono order.... But it still doesn't compare to being in it at the time. In some ways it's nice to have something that existing live and dynamic in that time only, that cant just be replicated on DVD or online.

I was telling my younger brother about the ARG tonight and I am so sad that all the websites are gone. I would really like to look through that massive zip file if you wanted to share it.

[Erik]

I'm just going to leave this here.

[ninjaw]

There was an impressive french blog http://blogs.visual-music.org/Reno/

[FRDU]

For sure. I have a massive zip archive that someone put together of pretty much everything in chrono order.... But it still doesn't compare to being in it at the time. In some ways it's nice to have something that existing live and dynamic in that time only, that cant just be replicated on DVD or online.

Hi, I'm writing my thesis on the Year Zero ARG and would love to have a zip file with everything in it. It would save me a huge amount of time not having to find everything separately. Is there a way to upload it somewhere for me to download?

[sick among the pure]

I forgot about the numbers entirely! Where the heck do I find mine? The subversive network lists seem to be gone from the web and I don't think they are in the mediafire link provided above. I was a soft-target, too; I totally want to remember mine.

Yeah, unfortunately (all?) the sites went down after a while. I don't have the 24# lists saved, just that they were all 24.24.(1 for The Spiral account, 2 for ETS account).(number based off alphabetical order).
Also hello fellow soft target.

[Warped_Savant]

Hi, I'm writing my thesis on the Year Zero ARG and would love to have a zip file with everything in it. It would save me a huge amount of time not having to find everything separately. Is there a way to upload it somewhere for me to download?

Send me a PM with your e-mail address... I have offline copies of all of the sites that myself and another user put together during the ARG.

I forgot about the numbers entirely! Where the heck do I find mine? The subversive network lists seem to be gone from the web and I don't think they are in the mediafire link provided above. I was a soft-target, too; I totally want to remember mine.

You're not on the list under this user name. What was your name at the time?

[mostlymad]

I forgot about the numbers entirely! Where the heck do I find mine? The subversive network lists seem to be gone from the web and I don't think they are in the mediafire link provided above. I was a soft-target, too; I totally want to remember mine.

My spiral name (which I used when I reopened this account, because I like it better) had [Executed] next to it. My original nickname here, "criarde", was unmarked. Do I die or don't I? lol

[Warped_Savant]

I was prototype. Thanks!

24.24.2.2286 prototype [Soft target]

No problem!

[skip niklas]

https://web.archive.org/web/20080304...exhibit24.net/

The internet time machine is your friend.

[Shadaloo]

Those were good times. I believe I was a soft target. Still have my AIR patch.

[skip niklas]

I keep that bookmarked for just such occasions.