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

theguardian.com

251–260 of 305 posts

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

#251
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't super 'lefty' but "Aryan" is completely unfair. Berghain cares a lot about diversity, and non-straight and non-white people have a sligtly higher chance of getting in (never any guarantees for non-regulars of course), which is the opposite of what a nazi place would promote.

Non-white and non-straight as long as they looked like they were coming right from a balenciaga catwalk. And they weren't shy in the past of hosting notoriously hard-right aligned djs and artists. Berghain antics aside, the point I was trying to make it's that Berlin club scene isn't exactly as "welcoming" of outsiders as a whole as the OP was suggesting.

> And they weren't shy in the past of hosting notoriously hard-right aligned djs and artists.

Whom?

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

#252
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. It's funny how the (somewhat leftist) techno scene hates on foreigners destroying their tradition. Berlin and Bavaria aren't so far apart after all.

Dunno. Sven & friends at Berghain never looked particularly lefty. Tbh They always gave me a a strong...erhh... "Aryan" vibe if you know what I mean.

Sven is gay.

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

#253
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heard exactly that, including the Leipzig part, every year for the 5 years I lived there 10 years ago. Berlin is the biggest city in continental Europe, there's a lot of everything and there'll always be hidden little nooks.

At least Paris, Moscow, Sankt Petersburg and Istanbul are significantly bigger; some other cities are bigger too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_...

It's definitely not as big as those in terms of surface area. But it's quite spread out and what counts as the "center" is a very loosely defined notion that is actually quite large compared to all those cities.

There's a ring of sbahn commuter rail around the center. From east to west that's about 16km and from north to south about 10km. Anything inside that could definitely be considered as the center. Walking east to west would take about three hours or so. You'll pass through a lot of interesting neighborhoods, each with their own little centers. You'll pass lots of landmarks. The former east and west berlin "centers" are about 9 km apart. A lot of the traditional landmarks and hotspots are spread out throughout that zone. And then you have a lot of gentrified spots that are becoming hotspots in their own right.

I use the word center loosely of course because there really is no such thing in Berlin. It's all spread out over a huge area. There are probably about well over a dozen areas that can lay claim to being a center of something. And frankly, most of the interesting bits are outside of what the tourists flock to these days.

Outside the ring, the city continues in pretty much all directions for quite some distance. And some of those areas are quite nice as well. But most would not consider that the center. I've lived here for about fifteen years and there are huge parts of the city that I've simply never even been to because it would take like an hour plus to get there and there isn't much in terms of landmarks, etc. to draw me there.

Technically Berlin is actually a city state (within the federation of Germany) that includes the capital and a few suburbs. Total population is still smaller than it was before WW II (3.5M people vs 4M people then). So there's a lot of open space, huge parks, two decommissioned airports (Tempelhof, Tegel), etc. all within the city limits. Tempelhof is huge. About 2km by 2km of open space in the middle of a big city with two decomissioned runways. It was the site of the cold war air bridge. You have Kreuzberg to the north, Neuköln to the east and Alt Tempelhof just outside the ring on the south west side. And that's just one corner of the city. All in former west Berlin.

The population is growing for the last decades at a pretty decent rate (about 50K new people per year or so). But it will take some time to catch up to pre WW II era levels.

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

#254
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kreuzberg is a borough in Berlin with 150k inhabitants, and it used to be divided into two postcodes: 36 and 61. 36 is the cooler, poorer, more political, younger half of the borough, it really was a center for non-conformists after reunification, but it's being gentrified these days.

https://needleberlin.com/2014/07/03/the-two-faces-of-kreuzbe... "36 Brennt, 61 Pennt" 'I’ve tried to come up with a rhyme that works in English: “36’s on fire, 61’s just tired” was one solution, but it doesn’t carry the matter-of-factness of the German.'

ChatGPT suggests “36 blazes, 61 lazes”.

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

#255
post #46
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…

At the point where UNESCO are recognizing it it’s probably fair to say it’s not underground at all anymore

Precisely. Why did I need to tell this all BS at all, you nailed it soo good. It is heritage, history, not the wave itself.

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

#256
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…

> the scene is moving towards Leipzig Speaking as someone who's split ~half my time between Leipzig and Berlin for the last 5 years, this is not true. Leipzig's club scene is an extension of its university population. It's younger, straighter, whiter, and about two orders of magnitude smaller. People visit the clubs while they're going to school there, then they graduate and move elsewhere. Often to Berlin. Why does…

Techno has always been about that in Europe - young and white. And it is not in Berlin anymore.

Berlin can have the heritage, NOW it’s not there anymore, do u get it?

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

#257
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…

https://ra.co/events/de/berlin events tonight in Berlin... parties at 100+ clubs, doesn't seem like anywhere comes close.

It’s what commerce looks like. Abundance is not a mark of the underground.

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

#258
post #134

We need an acknowledgment of the past, the origins, which may no longer be present. Detroit starting in the ‘80s and into the 90s would be the prime example. I wrote a short essay about the latter : https://technotarek.com/shows/richie-hawtin

In the US it seems there's still a decent appetite to connect to the history of the genre. Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, etc. still tour regularly. In NYC, DJ Assault is currently holding a residency at Market Hotel. Nowadays has been running a series of "Foundations Nights" where they book a group of DJs representing the lineage of a particular style, which have been great. The Dweller festi…

It's pervasive in Berlin from what I see, understand, and have read about the 90's. Realistically it's not a pervasive fabric of even a place like Detroit. Most people in Detroit don't even know that techno is "from" there.

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it. All the Belleville Three were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and euro-electro, and you can hear that too. All of them namecheck a much richer and diverse set of influences than Chicago house, itself a refinement of disco, a far from strictly racially-defined movement. The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did, if you actuall…

> Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it Totally. I have somewhere in my pile of neglected vinyl one of the "Final Cut" releases, which was a straight-up wax-trax style EBM/industrial thing which Jeff Mills was involved in. Late 80s/early-90s. > The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did Arguably, the US never really did. Most people here in North America remain clueless to w…

That last part - was trance/prog house always like that? Or did it start more underground and organic in 1989 onward until the mid-90s where it became very commercial and then went to the next level with someone like Tiesto?

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

#260
post #60
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be a bit pedantic: techno didn't come from Chicago but from Detroit :)

Seems like UNESCO forgot about us in Detroit. Not to worry, we're used to it, and we'll party all the same.

Detroit deserves much more in its failed financial state to be made héritage of like anything… Urban heritage man, re u joking. Sadly no bright future for Detroit for the time being…
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