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Peng Collective


The Peng Collective is a group of culture jamming activists based in Berlin. Through actions of tactical media, the Peng Collective wants to inspire other activists and civil society organisations to be more courageous in their campaigning methods. “Let’s learn from our enemies,” one of their members says in an interview. “If you look at the economics of corporations, their state of mind is: ‘let’s look at every possible gray area of laws and use them.’ And NGOs just don’t do that.” In 2016, the collective was part of the Berlin Biennale.

They got international media attention, when they held a presentation called "Your data, our future" in the Name of Google at Europes largest tech conference re:publica in 2014. All presented products where designed to gather more data from the consumers, claiming that this is in their best interest. After Google threatened them to take down their parody website, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) supported them legally:

Unfortunately, Google's skin was not thick enough to withstand this relatively gently ribbing. The company wrote a polite note to the collective, expressing their sincere respect for political commentary—but nonetheless demanding that Peng! revise the site and assign the domain name to Google. Note to Google: polite trademark bullying is still bullying. EFF responded to Google on Peng's behalf, explaining what should be obvious: the site was pure noncommercial political commentary. Trademark owners should not and cannot punish activists simply because they happen to use trademarks in the course of that kind of commentary.

Invited as fake persona to a conference of the Oil company Shell, they created an oil spill on stage instead of the expected presentation. The evening was a Public Relations event organized by Burson Marsteller in Berlin, where one member of the Collective could enter the stage because he claimed to have created a car that is cleaning the air.

In 2015, the group infiltrated the Cinema for Peace Gala in Berlin with a fake polar bear and The Yes Men to go on stage and insist that divestment from fossil fuels is helping more against climate change than charity projects. Pussy Riot, who was invited as speaker to the charity gala came to support them, when the organizers of the event tried to silence them with security guards.


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