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Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

theguardian.com

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Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#211

Post by immibis »

wheels wrote: post #81
junon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Berlin. This isn't true at all. Berlin's underground scene is still quite strong, perhaps just not as strong as it used to be. There's more "in the open" stuff due to the popularity, yes, but there's still plenty of (sometimes literal) underground raves happening. I'd also argue that the most recent accelerator for the shift in culture in Berlin isn't so much the tourism, but the pandemic. People haven't re…

Tourism definitely wasn't a major drag on the techno scene. There's always been the tourist clubs and the clubs that were more underground. Berliners usually don't go to Berlin's best known clubs. (Who the hell goes to Watergate or Tresor? Old joke was that Tresor was the biggest club in Dresden.) I think the biggest drag is actually rent prices. When I got to Berlin 20 years ago you could get a room in a shared flat…

You are absolutely right about rent. Its effect is not limited to techno - rent extraction is a damper on everything in the economy (except for rent extraction).

Imagine a guy comes around to your house every month and demands $1000 or else he breaks your kneecaps. You'd be quite motivated to ensure you can make that $1000 each month and you'd not be left with as much energy for doing everything else you might want to do. That's essentially the economic effect of rent. At least taxes are indexed to your income, so you can always afford to pay them; rent is not.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#212

Post by scoofy »

lenerdenator wrote: post #140
ryukafalz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked this up because I was surprised to hear about this. Context for those unfamiliar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-07/berlin-pl... This is the kind of mistake that we made in the US decades ago, and the results are plain to see today in any neighborhood bisected by a freeway.

Considering the US chose an interstate highway system in large part due to Eisenhower's exposure to the Autobahn during WWII, there's sort of a karmic quality to this.

The controlled-access highway system is a fantastic innovation for our automobile-based transportation system in America. It dramatically increases safety, fuel-efficiency, and throughput.

This issue is that the controlled-access highways should have never been placed inside cities, but that precludes the automobile becoming the de facto mode of transportation.

It's important to remember that many of Robert Moses's city-splitting projects were started before WWII. I suspect that some of the worst aspects of what resulted from his legacy were based on vain attempt to use suburbia as defense mechanism to better survive a nuclear exchange.

The irony is that the existing controlled access highways could be fairly easily repurposed to rail if we wanted to, it's just that the automobile addicts that we are would collectively lose our mind if we actually converted some of redundant urban highways into railways.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#213

Post by immibis »

snakeyjake wrote: post #144
larodi wrote: post #4

According to many people, including record shop owners I’ve talked to, Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. Rich people nowadays buy property in Potsdam, and the scene is moving towards Leipzig. In a more general sense the old rave cities are making way, and have been making way, to other cities. A movement spanning more than 20 years now, thank…

>Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden and exclusive tend to be shitty, shallow, superficial people. Many, many, varied decades of life lived all over the world, and I've never witnessed a counterexample so I hesitate to make it an absolute. Same goes for people who think they like…

How do you feel about Twitter vs Fediverse? People don't like Fediverse "because it's hidden", but they like it because of the qualities it has, many of which are influenced by it being hidden. If it was bigger and still had those qualities, that would be fine too.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#214

Post by immibis »

piva00 wrote: post #16
larodi wrote: post #4

According to many people, including record shop owners I’ve talked to, Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. Rich people nowadays buy property in Potsdam, and the scene is moving towards Leipzig. In a more general sense the old rave cities are making way, and have been making way, to other cities. A movement spanning more than 20 years now, thank…

Leipzig seems to be the new underground place in Germany from what I've heard and experienced. I believe this is the usual cycle of cities going through: arts scene existing because it's a cheap place to live, artists congregate in places they can afford, create a cool scene, the cool scene brings some bars/cafés and slowly it erodes to gentrification since these places are cool and attract other crowds into it (high…

The usual cycle of capitalism going through cities. This thing where vultures move in and monetize things that other people created for free is a peculiarity of the way our economy works, not a universal truth (although it's a universal truth that it happens wherever it's allowed to, it's not universally allowed to happen).

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#215

Post by immibis »

aketchum wrote: post #79
ryukafalz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked this up because I was surprised to hear about this. Context for those unfamiliar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-07/berlin-pl... This is the kind of mistake that we made in the US decades ago, and the results are plain to see today in any neighborhood bisected by a freeway.

atlanta is trying to fix this by building a park over the interstate in the city center. Only tangentially related but it blows me away how ambitious the project is. The stated goal is for reconnecting communities on either side

In Berlin there's a park, Westpark am Gleisdreieck, that occupies an old rail yard and covers up a rail tunnel underneath. I can testify although it still feels like the park is a dividing line between separate communities on each side, it's nowhere as divisive as an actual railway that you couldn't just walk over.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#216

Post by immibis »

wolverine876 wrote: post #195
t_mann wrote: post #179

The museum-ification of Europe continues unabated. I can't get into the mind of the people who thought that this award was a good idea, much less anyone who'd feel happy about receiving it (it's usually not the 'real' locals anyway, but people who are close enough to feel some connection but far enough to not be exposed to the reality; or people with financial interests).

That's similar to my initial response. The museum treatment is the end for any artform, IMHO; it's petrification. Did rock'n'roll grow and move and thrive after its Hall of Fame opened? I suppose there was grunge. It freezes the artform in a certain state (and by who and how is that state chosen?) and defines it that way for eternity. That's death - growth and change are ended; like the dearly departed it's defined b…

This is not a museum. It doesn't prevent new things from happening or old things from closing down, although it may provide some legal weight to prevent them from being forced to close down or not happen (e.g. because the CDU wants to build a highway through the poor part of town, as it does right now).

Demoscene is on the same list, but that doesn't mean UNESCO is forcing demoparties to run a certain way or forcing demosceners to make demos a certain way or that any of it became a museum. It just means the government shouldn't try to shut it down. Maybe it enables the government to make some official demo archive in the future or something, but what's wrong with that? A demo museum can exist at the same time as an active scene, just like museums about the past of Berlin can exist at the same time as Berlin exists, and the same in techno.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#217

Post by groestl »

Tenoke wrote: post #191
luzojeda wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine Q. Do berliner straight dislike any tourist no matter how they behave? I tend to go out in Buenos Aires where I live to more underground clubs and don't mind that there are a few tourists here and there. Im travelling to Berlin and was recommended Tresor, is it just a place for tourists?

Depends on the tourists - there's a lot of tourists that fit in the scene very easily, there's some that don't. It's not a requirement but if you already listen to the artists that are going to be playing you are in the first group. Tresor has pretty decent lineups while still being a bit more touristey but it's not a tourist trap or an ibiza-style club or anything like that. The crowd is generally considered a bit w…

Tresor: As a tourist, could enter because I knew the DJs on the lineup and was wearing a black hoodie. Guy behind me with a fancy shirt got rejected subito, no questions asked.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#218

Post by crucialfelix »

mitjam wrote: post #183
wizerdrobe wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is Kreuzberg 36? I always assumed that was a street number after hearing an old Smut Peddlers song. https://genius.com/Smut-peddlers-kreuzberg-36-lyrics

It‘s actually called SO36 and a famous punk / music club named after the former postal zone 1000 Berlin 36 which was a part of Berlin Kreuzberg. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SO36 https://www.so36.com/

And it's still going strong

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#219

Post by masfuerte »

ryukafalz wrote: post #57
jamil7 wrote: post #55

How exactly does the city and federal Government square this with their plan to build a huge (unwanted) freeway through the city and bulldoze multiple clubs and music venues?

I just looked this up because I was surprised to hear about this. Context for those unfamiliar: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-07/berlin-pl... This is the kind of mistake that we made in the US decades ago, and the results are plain to see today in any neighborhood bisected by a freeway.

An egregious example:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cairo-flats-are-handy-for...

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#220

Post by [deleted] »

ziddoap wrote: post #135
vidarh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London and City of London are two different entities entirely so that comparison does not work. London at its largest refers to the 32 boroughs and City of London that makes up Greater London, not the City, to those of us who live here. At it's smallest, it still refers to most of that, not just City. If we want to shorten the name of City of London, the short form is the City, not London. The only people who ever ca…

> If we want to shorten the name of City of London, the short form is the City, not London This seems almost obnoxiously confusing when talking online to people from all over the world.

[deleted]
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