Berlin: Constrasts and Experimentation
A journey through the experimental scene of the German capital: where art contaminates itself with activism, in both institutional and underground spaces
Tatiana Bazzichelli
photos Tatiana Bazzichelli
Berlin is a town with a painful past, a building site which – since 1989, the year the wall fell – has shown no sign of reaching completion. Today the city is completely transformed compared to fifteen years ago and it’s difficult to take it all in if you’re not entirely dedicated to it. The economic crisis has hit here too, but the rate at which art and cultural events come and go is still surprising.
Unlike other metropolises with a better-defined structure, Berlin’s experimental art scene is not associated with one or more dedicated buildings. Media centres as such do not exist, but there are art events and productions which bloom and die in just a couple of weeks, appearing at more or less conventional venues or going totally ‘underground’. In this malleable creative landscape, the key event for the disciples of digital and media art is undoubtedly Transmediale, the international festival of new-media art founded in 1988 which, for the 2004 edition, was hosted by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
The director of Transmediale, Andreas Broeckmann, is also curator of the Media Art section of Podewil, a contemporary arts centre specialized in theatre, performance, dance and digital arts as well as an artists’ residence. Founded in 1992, it is located in Berlin’s Mitte district and offers an innovative programme rich in video screenings, concerts, readings and happenings. Podewil showcases the work of international artists, encouraging them to use their studios and take part in workshops and training courses.
The Berliner Congress Center is not a permanent venue, but is frequently used for media-art and technology events. Berlin’s Chaos Computer Club organizes its Chaos Communication Congress here, an annual international get together for hackers and all those who love to experiment with technology. The latest congress was a follow up to the Hacker Camp of August 2003, held in the suburbs.
Unlike the Italian situation, which often sees hackers pigeonholed as ‘computer pirates’, here in Berlin the CCC is a veritable institution. During the Hacker Camp and CCC Congress, international computer and technology experts came to Berlin, creating panels, seminars, workshops and train-yourself programmes.
To get some idea of how popular this group of hackers is in Berlin, look no further than project Blinkenlights (a term defined in the legendary Jargon File as “front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer”, which came to life in Alexanderplatz, one of the busiest town squares. Here, for six months from September 2001, the building known as Haus des Lehrers (House of the Teachers) saw its façade transformed into an enormous pixel display. Lights inside individual rooms were switched on or off to compose images or letters of the alphabet. A computer controlled the lights in each room, creating phrases and animation sequences interactively programmed by the public via mobile phone and visible to everyone in the square. The experiment was repeated during the latest CCC Congress of December 2003. Another group that has worked with CCC is C-Base, whose main interest is the development of art and graphics projects rooted in sci-fi and ‘ufology’. In June, the Berliner Congress Center was also home to the Wizards of OS, the well-known international conference on open collaboration in the creation of knowledge. WOS 3 – theme “The Future of the Digital Commons” – offered workshops and seminars on free software, open culture, software art and the development of free knowledge in various fields. Alternative structures like Bootlab provide an opportunity to share in free-software, street-TV, free-radio and wireless projects. Located at Ziegelstrasse 20 in the Mitte district, Bootlab offers a good example of how media experimentation in the city is generated from various individual nodes which, together, create a fluid network of initiatives and projects. At Bootlab you can find people from around the globe who work in media and technology, who consider this place a vital stop in finding out about the current state of counter-cultural affairs. Film screenings and project presentations are organized on Monday evenings, attracting a lot of people from Berlin and further afield. Platoon, on the other hand, is a design, aesthetics and activism-oriented open space whose headquarters is an authentic bunker. Courses and seminars are organized and the staff are ready and willing to get involved in the various projects, offering the space available for meetings and workshops. The Bethanien gallery in the Kreuzberg district sits on the borderline between mainstream and alternative with a particular interest in avant-garde art projects of a socio-political flavour and offers access to an interesting Media Arts Lab. Bethanien is split into Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien and Künstlerhaus Bethanien occupying, respectively, the ground floor and first floor of the building. Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien is run by Stéphane Bauer, who puts particular emphasis on emerging artists who combine the use of new media with political and cultural considerations. The Künstlerhaus Bethanien above is run by Christoph Tannert and functions as an artists’ residence, maintaining a more international outlook. The Media Arts Lab was founded here late in the 1990s and is currently run by Gerrit Gohlke with the aim of promoting exchanges between more ‘classical’ artists and those making use of new media with an experimental and unconventional approach. And finally, if you need information on activist and artivist pursuits in Germany, we recommend Rebel:Art. Originally e-zine only, then printed magazine, Rebel:Art deals with any interest bordering on activism, art and experimentation. In English and German, with striking graphics, it presents the projects of international artists and activists and includes a themed CD-Rom with each issue. The Rebel:Art group also organized the first Rebel:Art Festival – connecting art & activism, held in Berlin from the 1st to the 3rd of April 2004. The festival, entitled FFFFFF#000001, took place in various parts of Torstrasse, a street in the Mitte district famous for its nightlife, with a lavish programme of video screenings, panel art, workshops and experimentation on the themes of Culture Jamming, Hacktivism, Guerrilla and Media Art, Urban Actions and Artivism. All events were covered live by independent radio station Reboot.fm, another Bootlab group initiative.
And, on the radio theme, the most apt signoff for a town like Berlin just has to be: stay tuned!
