Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 October 2010
This paper argues that the Internet strategy created and used by Berlin musicians, Einstürzende Neubauten, emulates many aspects of Attali's (2006) hopes for the future of music – in particular, the creation of new social relations through a participatory listening and, in Chris Cutler's words (2008), to be ‘research as well as entertainment’. I set out to show that Neubauten's use of the world wide web made their Supporter Initiative a radical innovation. My evidence is that their Subskribentenmodell provided access during 2002–2007 to web-streamed ‘open studio’ rehearsals which facilitated a new relationship between artist and recipient in its declaration of fallibility and attention to feedback. Secondly, I argue that Neubauten's international network of 2,000 Unterstützers (not Anhängers) became a virtual and actual ‘extended family’ who created the cottage industry ethos necessary for successful independence. This family not only supported the band financially and contributed to artistic and practical decisions – as with the DIY Berlin concert Grundstück – but also provided grass roots knowledge and skill for independent dissemination and touring (in 2008) of Alles Wieder Offen. Finally, this anti-record company model now offered a paradigm to ‘infect’ other fringe artists and hence upheld Beuysian/Cageian social aims of art.