Goodbye, Peristal Singum!

PERISTAL SINGUM. Image taken from http://playingholidays.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/peristal-singum-labyrinth-berlin/

Berlin is changing, this change is unstoppable. The breathtaking Wilde Renate’s Labyrinth aka Peristal Singum will close forever on the 29th of March 2014. The homepage says: 

We welcome you to

collaborate! participate!

& transform!

Which means the guys are going to demolish it all and re-build it elsewhere and you can get involved.

About Peristal Singum

Within a 9 month period of continuous work, a small group of creative enthusiasts built  surrealistic and at the same time accessible installation spreading  on two floors.  This spontaneous creation was built from scrap metal, used timber piling, glass bottles, one car and different sorts of civilization waste.

Peristal Singum is a combination of Alice in Wonderland, a playground for grownups and a creepy cabinet with amusement factor.

By virtue of particular arts and materials, free organic interior design and extraordinary setting, people intuitively sharpen their senses and intensely  perceive entities around them, as well as the ones that reside inside of them.  The journey through this genuinely strange construction unveils secrets to ones who are willing to hark, question and take on challenges.  As a result, each person passes through one truthful, remarkable and authentic experience (http://karmanoia.org/peristal).

“It’s not for the faint of heart and it’s really hard to describe without giv­ing it away to some extent, but really, I urge you: go and check out what Peri­stal Singum is.

You will not regret it and you will never find some­thing like this again, ever, any­where, in and out­side of Ber­lin.”

http://www.findingberlin.com/peristal-singum/

This might be your last chance @ Wilde Ren­ate Salon, ALT-STRALAU 70 10245 Berlin

Wilde Renate Peristal Singum. Image taken from: http://samyroad.com/

John Waters in Berlin

Pink Flamingos, 1972.

As epic as it can get, the Pope of Trash is in town!

“In the 60s the bad reviews helped me, but that wouldn’t happen today. Now all film critics are hip; there are no square film critics anymore…or at least very few.”

John Waters

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-’60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore church halls to underground audiences drawn by word of mouth and street leafleting campaigns.

By the early 1970s he was making features, which he managed to get shown in midnight screenings in art cinemas by sheer perseverance. Success came when Pink Flamingos (1972) – a deliberate exercise in ultra-bad taste – took off in 1973, helped no doubt by lead actor Divine‘s infamous dog-crap eating scene. (imdb.com)

First time in Germany!

Where: Volksbühne

Address: Rosa-Luxembourg-Platz 2 , 10178 Berlin (Center)

Prices: from 30,60 €

When: Sun, 09.02.2014, 20:00 clock

Tickets: Order by phone

Why you should come to Directors Lounge X

Pied Piper by Vivek Budakoti

Because it’s a freak house, the place where everything is possible. Where you forget who you are, dissolving in the filmic nonsense. And every stranger in the room is the dearest alien to you. The childhood, the adolescence and the old age come together and generate the best viewer.

6-16 February

No admission till 8 pm

Film, Music, Art

programme

Facebook Event

1. The first reason why I like Directors Lounge, is its team. They’re all true characters. Once you see them, you never forget, and even more you won’t confuse them with anyone else! Greet them when you meet them.

2. The second reason, of course, is the film selection. This is where I lose myself. I stop even blinking, breathing and thinking. It’s just not necessary. Directors Lounge always has a crazy selection, for every taste: funny, ugly, surreal, disturbing, queer, touching and everything else what cannot be categorized. See the programme. 11 days of a video quirk is a great way to overdoze. You will look at the world with the different eyes.

Gilivanka Kedzior and Barbara Friedman

3. And the third reason, is the place. It’s the boring Alexanderplatz area, but Naherholung Sternchen is a real underground explosive. They have entirely rebuilt it within the last year, expanded and made even more freaky (A Twin Peaks party took a place there in December 2013; and I met Bob). On a regular DL night the aliens smoke cigarettes, drink beer and dance. It’s all good. And yes, there are plenty couches to share with directors.

These all three reasons create a very bizarre atmosphere, where I never know if I am who I am.

Some acts I am looking forward to seeing:

– World Premier: Nonconformity by Igor Parfenov 13.02. 

Nonconformity is a multilayered epos based on the works by Leо Tolstoy. The action is shifted to our reality. The spotlight of the story is a withdrawn existence of mountain village inhabitants.

Nonconformity.

– LIVE: Steve Morell 16.02. 10:30 pm

is a  remixer, DJ, producer, musician, founder of the record label “Pale Music Int.” and the German underground festival Berlin Insane.

– The exhibition: Digital Storytelling | arts and informatics 9-16.2. daily 6-9pm

Digital storytelling presents an installation of books that trigger interaction through the flipping of pages next to selected works from the Directors Lounge open call and video installations from the FKI, the research center of arts and informatics. All at the gallery space next to the Naherholung Sternchen

– Film Performance: Reynold Reynolds 11.02. 9pm

The live construction of the image destroys the illusion of film, revealing the whole studio process as art.

This guy does brainshaking stuff.

Secret Life from Artstudio Reynolds on Vimeo.

– LIVE: DIETER RITA SCHOLL with Martina Colli, piano 12.02. 10:30pm

Dieter Rita Scholl

A very special guest performing live, accompanied by Italian import pianist Martina Colli, straying from the classical repertoire of her recent album into the world of the offbeat.

– Live Performance: Still und Dunkel (silent and dark)

An audiovisual performance by Christoph Brünggel and Benny Jaberg.

Our interest lies in the aura of disused factories, abandoned civil defense facilities and similar supposed utopian, non-places‘. The temporality of such locations and their potential to evoke the feeling of loneliness in the spectator inspires us. We examine abandoned places towards its capacity to store and capture time in itself with artistic means.

While Nick Cave said he’ll pop in to Berlinale on the 10th of February, I really think he should come for the afterparty at Directors Lounge.

Nick Cave & PJ Harvey

Concert advice February 2014

Mogwai: Rave Tapes

The new Mogwai album Rave Tapes will be released January 20th 2014 via Rock Action/Sub Pop. They are on tour in Germany, and in Berlin February the 6th. They have chosen a very special location, called Tempordrom – it’s a white round building with spiky roof ends. I can see this building from my window. And it is one of those times when the support band is almost as exciting as the main act – Forest Swords. It is one producer, Matthew Barnes, from The Wirral/Liverpool, UK. His latest album is a true forest chaos. Get lost in those sounds!

For those who did not know Barry Burns from Mogwai runs a pub in Neukoelln, called Das Gift, it is always the best music in town and a nice drink selection! I suggest to try Andechs beer, my favorite! Just beware the doppelbock.

After this post-rock show Berlin will have another chance to see  a post-punk/shoegaze band The Soft Moon, who are playing on February the 11th in Berghain, often called the best club in Europe. I have been to a gig there before, it’s great acoustics and the beton echo blends with the cold punky waves very well.

See you there!

You cannot die from hunger in Berlin

© picture alliance­: dpa

Because Germans have a program called Food Sharing.

We all happen to buy sometimes too much, or the wrong item, or we simply go for a holiday and need to empty the fridge. Or maybe you had a birthday party with lots of cakes and salads and now you don’t know how to finish them all. There are many reasons why we throw away food.

Foodsharing.de found the way to save the products we cannot or don’t want to consume anymore.

Rainbow Arabia @ Urban Spree


Rainbow Arabia is a Los Angeles, CA, USA, arabesque / Asian worldbeat indietronica duo, of Danny Preston (keyboards – also with Future Pigeon and Whisky Biscuit) and wife Tiffany Preston. They débuted with EP “The Basta” (Aug 2008, Manimal Vinyl) and their latest album is “F.M. Sushi” (Apr 2013, Time No Place). Out of the many labels attached to Rainbow Arabia’s globe-trekking, kaleidoscopic dance music, the most concise term yet may be “Fourth World Pop” as they were recently dubbed by The Quietus (UK).

I was crazy about their music 5 years ago, so I guess it’s finally time to experience them live.

Saturday September the 14th

@ Urban Spree

Tickets from €11,50

http://www.urbanspree.com/

Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) to play Bi Nuu

Kim Gordon. Image taken from: http://www.intro.de/

After Sonic Youth split there is no way Kim Gordon, Thurston More or Lee Ronaldo would stay outside of the music scene. As a result, all of them just continued their solo career.

She has taken part in many experimental side-projects, notably with DJ Olive and in the noise-pop girl band Free Kitten. She is currently in a duo called Body/Head. They will play in Berlin on

November the 5th

@ Bi Nuu

Berlin, Germany

TICKETS

Mindpirates present: ODYSSEY OF THE LOVERS

Presented by Mindpirates

Film footage, photographs, audio recordings, text and interviews with participants will engage a dialogue about utopias, gatherings, dreams and the profound ambiguity inherent in the relationship between humans and nature. The exhibition and the concurrent two-week program of concerts, musical jams, art performances, readings and talks will reflect on the experiment and its connected themes. Mindpirates humbly invite the participants to revisit the event a year on, and welcome those who weren’t present to get a picture of the odyssey.

History

The Lovers set out to create a transformational happening: on August 25th and 26th, 2012, 400 participants came together on an idyllic island of perfect nature outside of Berlin for an ambitious musical jam session, uniting 100 international musicians and running non-stop for twenty-four hours.

The artist collective Mindpirates conceptualized and brought to life The Lovers. They conceived it as “a search and experiment to evoke love and human gratitude among each other and towards the universe”.

The invitation to The Lovers promised an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience. On site, the event morphed into a cathartic tempest, a caged whirlwind of both love and hate, epiphany and confusion. Many left before it was over, while others wanted for it to never end. A year on, some remember The Lovers with passionate fondness and still struggle to find words to describe it, while for others the dream had turned nightmarish and left a bitter feeling.

Don’t miss this rich flavoured 2 week-long event from Mindpirates, Opening August the 15th, 18:00:

Poetry of the Absurd — Odyssey of the Lovers opening night

Full Programme: http://mindpirates.org/thelovers/

Lydia Lunch will spread the retrovirus at The White Trash

Lydia Lunch. RETROVIRUS.

There are some women who are stronger than others and are called “iron ladies”, I think Lydia is not only one them but she is a real devil in a female body. Through swearing she’d use more intelectual words than half of the Americans together. Lydia always knew how to jump into a pile of shit and not to get dirty, and when she chose to get dirty she’d do it with a pleasure.

August the 21st she will perform at The White Trash, Berlin Mitte, with her new album called “Retrovirus”.

Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch, June 2, 1959, Rochester, New York) is an American singer, spoken word performer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene. “One of the 10 most influential performers of the 1990s.” (The Boston Phoenix).

She has performed with Sonic Youth, Swans, Rowland S. Howard, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (The Mars Volta), Pussy Galore, Die Haut, Anubian Lights and others. That makes about 3,5 gigabites of music with her voice on my iTunes. And if there are bands which spread the neverending love, Lydia seems to spread the never ending hate. Oh no it’s not being suicidal or pessimistic, it’s just being realistic. She gets fucking personal on stage, you just really feel her.

“I’m completely optimistic – I know the end is coming” 

“Sure you’re powerless, sure you’re just one person, sure you can’t change anything… but you don’t have to be miserable about it as well.”

XPOSED International Queer Film Festival Berlin

Xposed poster

My homeland, Latvia, is just a little less aggressive towards everyone who is not white and straight than Russia. Gay, lesbian, transgender – this topic makes post soviet countries take a hostile reception. Everything forbidden and “wrong” in my country always evoked in me compassion and will to support the minority. Trying to prove something in Latvia is like trying to plant tomatoes in concrete. We are blind and are not willing to change.

That’s why leaving my country was a celebration, I could avoid things I could not change. I did not want to waste my energy on people who don’t want to be happy. In Berlin I celebrate the variety, freedom and peace. XPOSED International Queer Film Festival is one of those events which reminds me that i am in the land where being yourself is normal.

It’s about eXposure and eXposing. It’s about fun, it’s about Berlin and the rest of the Queer World!

The best way to shine a light on Queer life in another land is to mark it with a giant X and open peoples eyes to it, therefore, the festival grew into it’s new focus. Every year we would dedicate to a specific region around the world and bring queer stories from these lands to an International audience in Berlin. Not only have we XPOSED Queer Australian short films, but also short films from Canada, Korea, Turkey, Germany, Spain & The Middle East!  X marks the spot, and that spot this year is AUSTRIA (Xposed)

30 May – 1 June 2013

@ MOVIEMENTO

Kottbusser Damm 22 ubhf – Schönleinstr. U8

Full Program and other venues

Kurt Kren 10/65 Selbstverstümmelung

Albert Sackl Im Freien