illustration: Virginie Kypriotis.
Berlin’s nightlife has served as inspiration for many art forms. Multiple illustrators have managed to convey the atmosphere of the wild parties that go on for days, among them Virginie Kypriotis with her fantastic visions of Berghain. The new project ENTER THE CLUB has made her work even more enthralling by turning it into a virtual reality experience.
photo: Le Buzz
When you think that you have done it all when you cannot decide what to do, or just want to have some different experiences this selection of Berlin Apps will help you no matter if you’re looking for a vegan restaurant or a ping-pong table. So you can discover yet another side of this kaleidoscopic city and make the most of your Berlin experience. Either if you are an Urberliner, you are studying or you are just here for your vacation. Check this list out and enjoy the city!
To really feel like you live in a place – to feel a real sense of belonging in a city – you need four things: A literal place to live (obviously), work of some sort, a lover or something like a love life, and then this fourth, often overlooked thing: a social life.
We take friends for granted a bit. When I moved here from Brooklyn, I sort of forgot that I’d have to start from scratch to have an active social calendar: to know where to go and what to do, and have people to do these things with. It can be quite hard to make solid plans! Berlin is a vibrant city, of course. With so many visitors and hostels and everything, it doesn’t take too long to learn that, say, clubs exist. But without some effort, you might think that nightlife is all about Matrix! Who knows when you’ll meet the cool person that turns you on to Sisyphos?
Fortunately, there are lots of resources out there to help those of us new to the city. After you’ve sorted your anmeldung and visa and all the headache stuff, and even found an apartment (miraculously!), it’s time to have fun. I don’t need to tell you about Tinder or im gegenteil or the many other dating apps focused on finding love and sex. But finding friends is another story. It’s sort of hard to imagine a Tinder for friendships, isn’t it?
photo: Robert Agthe / CC
The Spätis are as much of a trademark for Berlin as the TV tower or the Berliner Bear. The quirky little shops full of bottles and some often weird selection of supermarket goods are all over the city and a lot of people (mostly those too lazy or to unorganized to go to the next real supermarket) live off of these shops. Lately the beloved Spätis have been endangered by new laws that want to prohibit their Sunday opening hours and the beer benches in front of the popular late-night and after hour hang-outs. Who ever came up with these new laws: Shame on you! You are destroying one very great part of Berlin.
But here is a fun new project that celebrates the Spätis like they should be. It’s a new app developed by Clemens Morris that let’s you search the closest Späti near you. It’s really cool, especially if you are not in your own neighborhood or when you are new in town. If you walk by a Späti that hasn’t been listed yet, you can also submit one yourself or repost a closed one.
photo: Ganesha Balunsat
This is probably the most pressing question for many after and afternoon party friends in Berlin on any given Sunday (clearly we don’t need to ask this question for Saturday because the answer will be 100% for sure YES). I always fantasized about a secret webcam that gives you direct view onto the length of the cue so you know if you gonna be waiting forever or will swiftly slide in. And all of a sudden there it is: The new iPhone App Is There A Line At Berghain? is giving you the info you are looking for. It’s updated with the help of user feedback so it’s probably gonna be quite accurate as soon as it becomes more popular. Maybe this will even out all the peaks during the day to have a more fluent entrance situation? Oh let us dream, ok?
It’s finally Spring and the exciting festival season has kicked-off with so many music highlights awaiting us in the next couple of months. One of the most anticipated events this year is the annual Berlin Festival at Tempelhof. With amazing acts such as Woodkid, Austra, Moderat, K.I.Z., Mount Kimbie and Editors, as well as another edition of the Artville, the big art exhibition at the festival grounds, there is so much to look forward to.
We’ve teamed up with mobile app mbrace to give you a chance to win 2 tickets for the Berlin Festival. Find out more about it after the jump!
While the first two entries of our new series Berlin Goods were quite physical products made in Berlin our third one is from another nature. D3LTA is a brand new, really amazing photo app for iPhone and Android that was developed here at Stattbad Wedding by Christian Reich and his studio Rainbow Unicorn. The app will transform your photos into some amazing kaleidoscopic collages that could easily become the album cover of the next indie hipster band. It’s super fun to try out all the different filters on your photos and create your own little pieces of artwork. Speaking of which: Of all the submissions Christian will curate an exhibition of the best works that will take place later this year here in Berlin. We love the idea of that and can’t wait to see the results soon! After the jump a few impressions of the app.