Central intelligence agency

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The Central Intelligence Agency (ZIA), legally a company under civil law , is a network primarily of writers, journalists and web designers. Since it was founded, it has been an agency for text and web design and organizes cultural events. The virtual network does not have an office and is densest in Berlin. But members also live elsewhere in and outside Germany.

history

It was founded in 2001 by people from the area of ​​the Luke & Trooke fanzine and the Internet forum Polite Paparazzi . Kathrin Passig , Holm Friebe and Jörn Morisse founded the company as an "ironic company". The name is a parodic interlinear translation of the CIA ( Central Intelligence Agency ), the US foreign intelligence service . The writer Rainald Goetz had already used a similar formulation (“Central Intelligence Agency”) in his book Kronos: Reports in 1993. The agency's employees are divided into agents , unofficial employees and sleepers and also come mainly from the environment of the aforementioned Internet forum.

The ZIA moved into the focus of attention in the feature pages when co-founder Kathrin Passig won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2006. After members had already been successful in Klagenfurt in previous years with agent Natalie Balkow ( Ernst Willner Prize 2005) and unofficial employee Wolfgang Herrndorf (Audience Award 2004), a debate sparked in the major German daily newspapers in summer 2006 about what the ZIA was and whether it "infiltrated" the Bachmann Prize. Passig defended himself against this accusation in interviews.

The “Managing Directors” currently (as of March 2020) are Philipp Albers, Martin Baaske, Holm Friebe and Thomas Weyres.

activities

The company operates the giant machine weblog , which won the 2006 Grimme Online Award . It also includes the Supatopcheckerbunny , a fictional character created in the Forum Höfliche Paparazzi , who became known through comics for the satirical magazine Titanic and the Bunny Lectures held in Berlin . The Central Intelligence Agency regularly organizes ironic cultural evenings of this and a similar kind ( Powerpoint Karaoke ) in Berlin and aroused a lot of media attention with it and through all these activities.

Holm Friebe and Sascha Lobo , who operates as an unofficial employee, popularized the term digital bohemian in their book We call it work . The British artist duo Elisa Rose and Gary Danner first used the term “digital bohemian” in 1995.

literature

  • Holm Friebe, Sascha Lobo : We call it work. The digital bohemian or: intelligent life beyond permanent employment. Heyne, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-453-12092-1 .
  • Wolfgang Herrndorf: Central Intelligence Agency. In: This side of the Van Allen Belt. Eichborn Berlin, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-8218-5794-7 , pp. 157-185.
  • Kathrin Passig: The measurement of literature. In: Angela Leinen: How to win the Bachmann Prize. Instructions for use for reading and writing. Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-453-60132-1 , pp. 7-14.

Research literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holm Friebe: Where it all comes suddenly ago . ( Memento from September 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: zitty , 14/2006, pp. 26–28.
  2. ↑ People | Central intelligence agency. Retrieved March 18, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Maik Söhler: Networked in Brandenburg. Decentralized intelligence excursions: In Wolfgang Herrndorf's stories, bohemians are drawn to the country - “this side of the Van Allen belt” . ( Memento from February 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: taz Magazin, No. 8198 from February 10, 2007.