On the 3rd of October Germany will be celebrating the anniversary of its re-unification. Wait, didn’t we do that last year with the balloons and all? No, that was the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall which happened about one year before the actual re-unification of Germany. So as you can imagine this is a pretty special day for us here, especially for those who were born in the time when the country was still separated.
As in previous years the “Tag der Deutschen Einheit” will be celebrated with a big street festival at the Brandenburger Gate that is free for everyone to join.
Since the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall we have been publishing a lot of features about Berlin’s pre- and post-wall history here on the blog. This has been a very educative process for us as we learned so many things about the city that we live in that we didn’t know before. For the anniversary of the re-unification of Germany we want to give you another history lesson by collecting 25 highlights of the united Germany. We picked both big and small happenings, personal and general events that were important to us. Join us on a trip down memory lane after the jump. For more of those moments come to Brandenburger Tor on October the 3rd!
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by Frank | Stories
The Plastic Garden by IP Yuk-Yiu
This coming Wednesday the transmediale festival for technology-based art is opening its 5-day-program at the Hause der Kulturen der Welt. This year it’s already the 27th edition and the theme is afterglow.
“The world is finally digital but as masses of data and electronic hardware pile up, it seems to be more made out of trash than of treasure. transmediale 2014 looks at how the liberatory promises of the digital are now contrasted by data mining, mass surveillance and e-waste dumping as well as by the wasted bodies and minds produced by our constantly required attention to excessive data flows. afterglow is the diagnosis of this post-digital moment where instead of resigning into cultural conservatism we need to ask if there are means of renewal in the excess, overflow and waste of the digital afterglow?”
For me visiting the transmediale exhibition has always been an artisitic technological wonderland where I can discover things that I would have never thought about could exist, the most significant one being this mindblowing music machine reacTable that was later on used by Björk on her world tour. I’m looking forward to make equally interstering discoveries at this year’s edition. Some previews after the jump.
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by Frank | Art
Berlin is made of a thousand things: buildings, streets, places, parks, canals. Nothing of it is natural in the sense that everything is formed and influenced by the humans living here. In fact the core premise of the Anthropocene thesis is: Nature as we know it is a concept that belongs to the past. Humanity forms nature.
However fascinating this thesis might be, I am way more intrigued by the event which is taking starting tonight at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Read more about it after the jump.
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by Claudio | Art
Peaches by Luke Austin
Just one more week until the summer finally arrives in Berlin. Yes, next weekend is supposedly the end of the rainy cold summer in Berlin. Let’s hope that this forcast stays true! Until then we have quite a few things to keep us busy, including a festival about our future and sustainability, a 90s themed party (how new!), an exhibition of Berghain employees and another Weekday shop opening. This and much more after the jump.
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by Frank | Art, Movies, Music, Party
photo by RossinaBossioB
You may have heard that the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) is celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year. On Friday, the Sound Studies program at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) will hold an auditory exploration on the different layers of the house in a performance called HausKlang, where 12 different artists will be presenting their sound interpretations of that lovely oyster-shaped-Haus in Tiergarten. More event details after the beat.
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by Diwa | Art, Events, Music
