urban interventions | clubs x art by martin abbott
performance interaction culture music clubs
the sound of Berlin
sound - vibrations that travel through the air or another medium that can be heard upon reaching a person’s ear: light travels faster than sound.
experiments in urban space
a very rich period for the senses, not only visually but perhaps more through sound as well.’
Berlin is a dynamic city in constant urban flux.This state of change is registered overtly by significant large scale public and private investment, such as the project to reconstruct the old Royal Palace in Berlin Mitte. However it is the many smaller scale, public interventions across the city, that are transforming Berlin, building a reputation of a vibrant city that has become the third most visited city in Europe behind Paris and London. Similarly, the sound of Berlin is also in a state of constant flux.A conflicted history that shifted with the demise of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the city emerged with considerable urban space available for experimentation.A burgeoning techno /electronic club scene took off in the early 1990s. Marco Canevacci sees the city’s music history as being hugely important:‘many clubs were not only playing music, but working with artists to make art as well. It was
Today this changing sound is not so connected to the initiatives of artists, musicians, architects, designers and other residents, but to broader economic forces that are transforming the city’s urban fabric.The changing tastes of Berlin residents and increasing rents has led to the formation of a Music Board Fund of around $1million to protect the city’s declining club scene. This is an interview with Marco Barotti and Marco Canevacci of Plastique Fantastique and Architettura Sonora on their recent inter-disciplinary installation, the Emotion Maker. In this interview, emerges a description of the contemporary soundscape of Berlin.
martin abbott
left, Marco Cnevacci; right, Marco Barotti of the temporary architectural collective, Plastique Fantastique, Berlin.
had no network, a lack of contacts and everything had to be reinvented. To meet them, you had to go out. These were special circumstances and you had a chance to live differently. You had the synergy of people meeting themselves again and others for the first time in a new environment. Many things developed independently; bars, clubs, galleries, mixed spaces, you couldn’t tell the difference. People would mix all the ingredients to give birth to new forms of programmed space — locations where people could come together to meet and exchange information. From the beginning I was impressed by the mix of space with sound, video, installation and visual art. People were improvising to create hybrid spaces. Often they would be closed down by the police after a couple of nights. You had to be alert and follow the sounds.
After reunification in 1990, much of former East Berlin was still empty, in particular the central city district of Mitte. You arrived in 1991, can you describe the city you found? MC: I arrived in Berlin by chance and I found a rent free apartment in one day. It was paradise and I didn’t think about staying, it was just logical to be here. However, it was a strange because the East German state had collapsed and paramount to that was the void of power in the eastern sector of the city. The West German government couldn’t cover the emptiness immediately after reunification and there was a couple of years of complete anarchy. The eastern half of Berlin was full of empty space, yet it was impossible to rent an apartment. To find a flat, you simply walked in and claimed one. At the time, there was no standard city infrastructure, no telephone lines and of course no internet. A lot of new people were settling in East Berlin who didn’t know each other. We
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