ABSTRACT

Neubauten's strategies for independence between 2002 and 2008, centred on the three-phase development of the World-Wide-Web based Supporter Initiative which stressed a new participatory spectatorship via the open studio and set up the questioning, answering, redefining relationship with their supporters. Neubauten's earlier attempts at autonomy began with the self-produced cassette culture of the early 1980s and the Eisengrau label of Bargeld and Gut's secondhand shop, used to distribute Neubauten music and that of other local musicians. With these various attempts at self-management behind them, in August 2002 Neubauten made the decision to produce work without the backing of a record label and thus launched, on the Internet, Neubauten. This became known as the Supporter Initiative. The supporters all stressed the importance of being active members, not passive consumers or followers; many spoke of the satisfaction in knowing that their money went directly to the artists for their work and not to an intermediary company.