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December 20, 2011

10 most viewed posts of the shituationist blog for 2011

by fancypunk01

This is our annual report concerning the 10 most viewed posts of this blog according the insight statistics. We would like to thanks everyone who followed this blog for one more year.. It seems that we are keep going with new fresh ideas , features as well as new releases and dj sets. The shituationist institute is a open horizontal process for everyone who would like to contribute. Feel free to send us all you got and contact us regularly.

1)  record reviews: Chase and Status – more than a lot 2227 views

2) Thessaloniki on the Rocks! A shituationist city guide  555 views

3) featured artists: Zweifuss 415 views

4) Featured artists + interview : Reecard Farche “Anklepants”  409 views

5) Shelter 23 Opening – Vilka Area Thessaloniki 24.-26. Sept. 407 views

6) an interview with Marx Trukker 385 views

7) Interview: Robot For Brains 310 views

8) special mix editions 021: oh shit! by local suicide 293 views

9) a shituationist report from our long party weekend in the beginning of the month part 1 (report by Fancypunk) 276 views

10)rare pictures of the berghain club architecture 273views

Posted in articles, best of 2011 | Leave a Comment »

November 21, 2011

three years of shituationism

by dr0fn0thing

Dear readers,

To create situations was a dream of immediate social contact instead of alienated daily life. But the competition of isolated individuals means some feel free in their identity and others get lost in the process. To dissolve the identities into post-individual collectivity is not the only negation of these competitive processes. There also remains a space between, not collaborating and not competing, to denounce the idea of productivity and to claim an agile association, with itself as the only aim. To have a collaborative existence not for having a profit, but for having existences and collaborations outside the idea of profit.

Also this image brings up the idea of deviance, to act outside the norm can be an act of claiming comfort, even if the act itself seemed to aim at finding adventure. People who are bored seek entertainment, and will find lots of it without deviant behavior in culture industry. But people who feel uncomfortable with this will find their comfort in deviant communities, something that seems adventurous. The initial decision was not so much to seek adventure, but more one of seeking social comfort.

Sharing a space and feeling a status between alone and together, to help each other without aiming at reward or even any action in trade, to feel close without having the feeling to loose oneself – in the sense of opening up completely – or without asking for others to open up completely – which is in any ways a strange and illusionist idea – , to deny the idea of absolute understanding, and to reclaim the idea of communication from those that think that free communication is possible under the doctrine of market competition.

But the autonomy is not the small community, it lies in other ways of communication. So this can happen at mass events, or in a painting, in a song or in a book.  The spectacle of situationist comfort is shit. We only do shit on a pile of shit to get out of the shit. The only progress that is inside this process, is one that aims at social modes changing towards a reconcilitation of global equality and diversity. Because this only opens the space for what we cannot yet imagine: freedom.

The luxury of relative safety and free time that parts of the world population have, means being able to choose to work on the education wich enables the transformation and to build up autonomy als strengthening of freedom, not as exclusive collective, not for oneself, but as an open and therefore deviant form. Limited to material things this could be basically everything, from means of production, to commons (freely available anti-commodities), from spaces and means of communication to infohubs or libraries, etc., the principle matters. The subsequent challenge is of course to not only think this on the level of subculture, but to bring the ruthless criticism of the state and the idea of democratic coordination of production and supply into line (not thought as global centralist state directed economy obviously, but more creative ways please), only possible as a movement through the existing, a real transformation and not smashing everything and going backwards to previous forms of the social.

The cyberpunks on the various collaborative networks are flooding the audience with texts, movies, songs, images, a vast wave of media. Working all the time under fake identities to give away anticommodities of a little countercultureindustry. With that fulfilling the idealist idea of the free and useful citizens. Only through the nature of these efforts being collective and collaborative, this theater of autonomy could be kept running, serving as a good example to all little self-managed projects out there that with a little circle of friends you can reach everything you can imagine. Nothing else though.

The game of creating a strong collective representation that immediately represents itself is programmed to fail in a society that only uses representations to mark the value of exchangeability. The punk image of a gang that somehow evades the mainstream norms and holds up the now conservative ideas of elite and underground is a joke that had to choke itself. It is working with the idea of an everchanging collective project that would remain the same all the time in order to avoid to spoil the fans. This planned contradiction of the ultimate hype is not scandalous anymore when the whole web turns to the noncontradictive targeted creation of hypes.

What the cyberpunk groups had caricatured since decades was only about to become the online model of creating static ideas that represent dynamic change. The cybergangs were constructed never to end, because as a project, a channel, it was not aiming for something and therefore it couldn’t fail. Other media collectives of today, opposed to this, want to start because they realize that pictured dynamics has to be the key feature of a successful industrial media product.

Virtual hedonist activism and its traditions have to be overturned. The shituationists were from the beginning willing to transform from a hobby club to a working group as soon as they could. The shituationist strike, the giving up of daily posts, was just our way to understand that we remained a hobby club. But the perspective is, no more blogging for the sake of blogging, instead networking with other collectives, writers, artists, clubs, musicians and thinkers. Refuse the entertainment, it’s about finding enlightment in thought processes themselves and not in what forms they have been given for representation. But basically we want food not fame. We understand the cynicism of all our failures: bloggers don’t be afraid of loosing your digital ego, you can have a shiny artist identity instead. We just try to keep our irony and blasphemy to our own metaphors, and evaluate the tactic from time to time.

We are boring, you are all bored. This makes us enthuastic loosing winners on the forefronts of life: working for nothing but the ephemeral idiotic body- and mindless total creation of our lifes, failing and even more failing in creating the whole life, failing as the idiots that we are by stepping over a border no one should even step on in their own interest.

Thank you, and may only love tear us apart again.

this birthday speech was sampled from some of the texts i wrote in the last year.
read last years birthday text here (with a lot of pics and stories)
a group picture of some shituationists in 2011:

Posted in articles | Leave a Comment »

July 18, 2011

Moussism

by dr0fn0thing

“About Mousse
Carvaggio could be the first MOUSSE artist and played a significant role in the Counter Reformation, an artistic movement that struggled to create a balance to the reformation (and not be crucified). As the church manipulated art and social aesthetic values in propaganda maneuvers. Carvagio managed to make MOUSSE of the most recognized icons. He was a complete faux pas, but he was also such a good painter that it didn’t matter.

We can take as examples, the seductive lips of the Lute Player, his drunken green Baccus or the first things that strike the eye when we come across his work ‘Madonna di Loretto.’ The first thing you see are dirty feet and the ass of a man, Madonna as a whore and peasants as believers, a baby so big he has no business being in his mother’s arms. Carvaggio made MOUSSE by abusing form through mastery of craft and managing to make subversive work without compromising the sincerity of his expression.

He found a way to personalize commissions in a style that was ugly and sweet and undeniable. He sold his creativity and guarded his authenticity with his life. This is essential to making MOUSSE. This is where the honest and emotional are safe from mediated onslaught and illusion. It is an ethical stance towards creating in general and specifically to creating art. The work is not concerned with politics as a subject, the political act is the communication of the work.”

from the new Modart book (more info here)

Posted in and besides..., articles, Book reviews | Leave a Comment »

June 21, 2011

interview with Vj Shoken (Gidon Schocken)

by markoira

Visuals in clubs and especially in techno parties and events are commonplace but live mixing and sampling of video is still a rarity, although it’s certainly happening more and more. The  live visuals are evolving from a number of directions. Boundaries are blurry, and there is little consensus about what names mean: are you a VJ, video artist, film maker or something else? Unsurprisingly many people occupy more than one category.

You probably haven’t walked into a club recently and seen someone hunched over DVD decks and a vision mixer (partly because they are still very expensive), but there is a growing scene of VJs doing exactly this in the club environment and alternative spaces.There is also a commercial world that drives forward new technologies such as the increasingly prevalent DVD decks and the cutting edge displays that deliver 3D visuals and holograms. This big money sphere also encompasses the complex visuals that accompany stadium filling concerts from established artists.

Alongside the ‘VJing scene’ and the more commercial side of things is a third source of innovation and development: ‘AV art’. There is a distinctive continuum of individuals who are using new technologies, and abusing old technology, to produce installation works and bring interactivity and the avant garde to club nights. Add into the mix DJs who have started to stray into the visual world (viz. Roger Sanchez and Ferry Corsten), and the development of a version of Serato that allows scratching and syncing of video from standard decks, and it soon becomes clear that there’s a lot of boundaries converging on live visuals.

Today I am going to interview Vj Shoken (Gidon Schocken) from Tel Aviv -Israel  mostly because I admire his work and secondly because as a video artist and upcoming live visual performer I feel the need to share with you my questions on that innovative and avant guard trend in the club scene.

1)Well Gidon, let s start this interview by telling us some things about you and how did you start your career as an audiovisual artist.

I started working at a small visual content studio at 2005, kind of by accident…. I just finished the army and was searching for an interesting job. I didn’t even know what Vjing was beforehand. I got into it pretty quickly, a few months of carrying around equipment, learning all the technical jargon, studying the different styles of the other Vjs. Then I started to take on venues by myself. I worked in the company for around two years and then decided to go study music more seriously, music has always been my main attraction. Sadly I could not juggle the two so I had to leave the studio and for the past three years I studied music production, and left the visual side of my brain to rest for a while. I graduated a few months ago, and now I’m working on combining my experience as a VJ and my musical aspirations so that it will become one unit.

2)Which is the kind of music that you get inspired more so to synthesize visually?Do you also make your own music?

I don’t think that there is a certain genre that I prefer, there is a whole musical spectrum that I enjoy listening to and that also inspires me visually, mostly experimental music. To the day I find myself more and more drawn towards noise and all of it’s sub-genres. For the past few years I have taken part in different musical collaborations, projects, bands etc. Recently I’ve left most of that behind and started to focus more on creating music alone, experimenting in different platforms and instruments, and of course importing my visual taste into it all. My latest clip called “Critters”  is the direction I’m leaning towards.

3)Is there any technology coming up in terms of projections and holograms that you would like to build into a show and which technical equipment do you prefer to use?

I always enjoy experimenting, usually my thoughts are drawn towards what I project on: screens, objects etc.  My latest has been trying projecting on buildings and other urban surfaces also layers of mosquito nets to achieve a kind of 3d effect, I’m also working on building a screen In a V shape in front of the performer with a rear projection so that I can incorporate the movement of the performer into the live show. Regarding the equipment, I run Resolume Avenue on a macbook pro with the korg nano and a akai lpd 8 as controllers, western digital firewire hd and a recently purchased mitsubishi XD600u projector.

4)
Do you make your own video footage or you prefer downloading and editing it?I saw that you like using stop motion clips as well as VA, a webcam that is strapped to your guitar.

I use a bit of everything in my sets. I recently moved to a house with a backyard and I enjoy filming all the different creatures that crawl and climb around my yard, one of my favourite was a huge caterpillar who suddenly appeared in the kitchen, I followed him around for a while with a camera and later edited him and all sorts of other creatures and use them in my sets. I also enjoy sampling vintage films, decomposing them and then combining them with different effects. I tend to use Jpegs of people a lot in my source materials, sometimes to kind of add a face to the result or just use them as background fillers. Quartz also comes to play sometimes, when I want to add 3d objects, cubes, spheres etc.  Usually my purpose is to integrate all of the above in order to create my own unique visuals, the end result is kind of “grimy hi-tech creatures” style. Regarding the webcam, it was used specially for the band Man 25 in which I played guitar. The webcam was attached to the guitar and filmed the audience during the performance. The final output was a combination of the constant movement of the guitar and the audience. This served the concept of the band which was to have the audience be a part of the show and reflect upon themselves.

5)I know that you are collaborating with other visual artists or from similar disciplines to make projects e.g with Natalie Mandel on ‘Spiders and Tools’.Would you like to tell us about these collaborations and specifically for this project which was a projection on a building in front of Ravnitzky 7, Tel Aviv.Have you done many building projection projects in public spaces and which is the process of the whole organization of it?

I always enjoy collaborating with other visual artists, it tends to add new dimensions to the creative process. Specifically the project with Natalie was born through our mutual respect for each others work. I really admire her ability to create colourful creatures from recycled garbage she finds on the street. After a few conversations she passed on a few images and short stop-motion clips she created. The next stage was creating the illusion of movement of the creatures using different video software such as Resolume Avenue and Final Cut and then projecting it on a building. We chose the building in front of Ravnitzky 7 because it corresponds with the kind of work that we do. The neighbourhood is in the south part of Tel-Aviv which has a  rundown urban atmosphere, it is also the populated by a mixed group of artists, illegal aliens, and other shady characters which became to be a great audience :)

6)Do you think that the presence of your live visual performance affect the mood of the people in a party and the whole ambient of it?

I hope so :) The process of Vjing for me is mainly subconscious. Most of the time I decide on the spot what kind of visual I want to attach to the music and In addition, try to expect what the musical direction is in order to create continuity. This hopefully enhances the viewers experience and expands their interpretation of the music.

7)Who was your favourite DJ/DJs  in a live set that his/her music inspired you to go beyond your self visually talking?

There isn’t really a certain DJ that comes to mind, the ones I appreciate the most at the moment and am also inspired by visually are musicians who create their own shows and import visuals or collaborate with other visual artists such as Murcof/Antivj, Amon Tobin/Blasthaus and Plastikman to name a few. For me they are really pushing the audiovisual boundaries.

8)Any projects coming up at the moment?

I’m currently working with Yostek who is a good friend and a fellow musician on a new musical/visual venture called Kaap. we are collecting material and hoping to start performing by the end of the summer. In addition I hope to start teaching Vjing at Muzik, for me teaching is the best way to learn :) . I’m also preparing materials for a performance by a band called Trademark at the end of the month. At the same time I hope to continue working with Natalie as well as with other artists. Finally It’s also important to state that I am always trying to improve my own personal audiovisual creations, and continue searching for new ways to express myself.

Thank you very much Gidon

interview by Markoira 

a brief bio: 

Markoira is a video and digital live artist -performer originally from Greece currently working between London and Milan.Initially trained as an actress and then moved to the direction of live digital performances in theatre, gallery spaces ,music events and electro parties. Her collaborations with  music bands as a VJ  and video maker include: XXX,, Gossip, Elephant on Air, Horseplay Events(Proud Galleries,London), a video installation for the fashion show of Vivienne Westwood(Milan Show 01.11) and some more. Recently she founf herself happy to experiment with the building visuals and the video sculpting.At the same time is pleased to contribute to the Shituationist Institue cause she finds herself continuously attacted by their  innovative ideas on contemporary electronic music and situations that  succesfully create for their paries.

www.mariakonstantinesaraka.com

Posted in articles, artists, contemporary art, interviews, Israel, special editions, Tel Aviv, videos, visual art | 1 Comment »

April 11, 2011

Athens in Spring! a brief update

by fancypunk01

Many times on this blog , I ve mentioned how brilliant Athens is during Spring time. Last weekend was again a blast , walking at the city center , drinking beers on the street , getting wasted and visiting the alternative bars and techno venues of the city.

My long weekend in Athens started early on Wednesday at Gazi , a fabulous electro party was taking place there (swing bar). Swing was really packed , reminding me how awesome Athens is in Spring. Last Friday at six dogs , Ellen alien was on decks and a free dubstep/drum n bass party was taking place at the university of fine arts as well. On Saturday a little event organized by supporters and shituationists near syntagma square afterwards we have visited  Biomusik who was playing a great set at Astron bar. This is how my long weekend in Athens looked like. Next weeks I will keep posting news , dj sets and reports from the greek Metropolis , celebrating my return to the city after few months traveling in the country again , remaining in a precarious shituation.

Athens is different than the last years. It seems that arts and culture in the age of financial crisis are increasingly growing. A diversity of art events, exhibitions, street parties , self organization and creativity replaced somehow the misserable environment of the last years. It seems that a new generation with fresh ideas is already contributing. Collectives and groups in Athens like Hospital , or other collectives and individuals are perfectly representing this generation. Excarhia neiborhood (if you know what it means) is dead.. the missery of the “pseudo-radical” cultural circles as well.  Currently it seems that a new strong network of people is catching up with older structures. Therefore we will keep our focus of organizing events , parties and beyond the hedonist ground the next months.

We have already some potential of a short shituationist film and plans for open discussions concerning contemporary electronic music and culture. This process as usual remains something open , if you live or visit Athens just contact us.. As I previously wrote look forward for news from us soon.

 

Posted in articles, Athens, contemporary art, party reports | 1 Comment »

April 1, 2011

cyberpunk is dead

by dr0fn0thing

notes on the development of the so-called social web and the role of cyberpunks inside this process, by el. short version, read the full text here on cultdeadcow.com

the text talks about cyberpunk as it came from literary, and cyberpunk as it was reproduced by netpunks, and cyberpunks as the cliché for post-first-generation hackers:

The weakness of cyberpunk was its virtuality, being a complex of imagery mostly used by writers in fiction, by bloggers in egomany and by journalists in, well, „journalism“. What was missing, is a cyberpunk realism, in the sense of an aesthetics that relates to and occupies something else than the realms of literature. From this viewpoint, real existing cyberpunk was the adaption of cyberpunk as a shiny static representation for what was left of the dynamic of electronic pioneers, the early computer hackers, and their process of dissolving their avant-guard status in time and into mass. Comparable to the punks that were the mass reproduction of the avantgarde activists before them.

virtuality is seen as a failure, as it only provided a static identity and didn’t allow for playing with reality:

Inside the historic #fail of cyberpunk, still were hacker groups and cyberpunk collectives not only representing the literary images of cyberpunk, but trying to do cyberpunk realism. In the sense of picking up the punk culture and porting it to the cyberspace. Working with images and text in the new media, taking it back to the roots of post-war pre-punk movements, creating free tools, cultural gifts and mixed artworks, like all the minds from Guy Debord (and many before), to John Lyndon, to Allen Ginsberg, to Wau Holland, had shown the way. But working with punk attitude in the 90s and the Zeros proofs to be a delicate business. Now we can see the last phase of cyberpunk, the virus has spread, it has dissolved into one of its more justified aims: the dissolution in non-elitist mass approaches. If you search today for crazy netpunks, doing the mix with images, ideas and slogans, fighting cyberwars against scientology and other creepy institutions, you don‘t come to the avantgarde collectives, you go the chans.

the real-existing netbased cyberpunk-scene is going down:

After the autonomous text production of the last two decades, we face a shift to short notes and images. The DIY music scene remains a bit unaffected by this, since the hope to become a money earning musician is still a more powerful cultureindustrial meme than the one of a writer actually getting paid. The recent shifting from myspace to facebook shows although, that everyone-is-an-artist wasn‘t a powerful enough idea. It had to be self-representation, mini-blogging, star-cult, focus on images and other spectacular media instead of text: The hyperindividualist self-representation platform of facebook suited the masses best.

faces on facebook:

For large parts, this big network is filled with representations of static faces. Faces, that are amongst our most subliminal ways of communicating, become our fastest and most plain way of making a statement. Update profile picture, comment, like, like back, update again. The collectivization of communication (lat. communicare = do sth. together) failed, in fact this means the failure of mass art. Todays market of representations means that we exchange images that are valued by statements without consequence, statements whose only value is the one of attention, something we have learned from the advertising process, which has become the key process of culture. This cultural praxis fails to find a history of the human faces. The faces tried to break the boundaries of word and image, they were processes of conscious creation of speaking images for the feelings that words fail to describe. The times of boredom that everyone wanders now, through images that don‘t form related stories anymore, are a result of loosing our dream of creating non-static post-representative playful expressions. To associate the fragile idea of friendship still with the formalized and online media based networks of „friends“ is the dramatic deception that covers this loss. It was the fragile nature of friendship itself that was lost, that what made communication between friends comfortable. The need to be near to others and to be free on ones own at the same time, was dissolved into the mode of being present to each other only through distance. The tools of social media cover up the failure of the social itself. Giving up the idea of the possibility of social relations in which one can give each other the comfort of being together and granting all freedom the same time, is a failure whose results may be not so easy to cover. This is not a judgment about the idea of mass communication per se, but about the idea and modes of social media networks.

books instead of facebook:

So from this learning process we gain the perspective of boringness. Being a progressive participant of cyberspace today is not about being elite and surfing the most underground hubs. It’s about surfing on the top of it all, on the big normal junkyard of human creation and picking up the inspirations together. It’s also about reading a book again, following an author’s thought through 400 pages instead of 140 letters. And also in the same sense: doing a website again, a static thing that waits for hundreds to come by, just like a book in the library, instead of giving daily updates to attract some other thousands that need their daily fix of info. Some books still are more actual than the daily news reports (when these were still existing, now the news must be updated all the time). And maybe the lost dreams in these books need an actualisation through a website, instead of just a quotation in the fast streams of actualities. It’s about refusing the entertainment, it’s about finding enlightment in thought processes themselves and not in what forms they have been given for representation. It’s about picking up something dead and giving it life instead of living the perpetual death of the bubble of statements.

So what’s the challenge?

The non-conformism of today is a real challenge: To deal with something beyond the instantaneous satisfaction of a pseudodynamic static image. The progressive illustrations, thoughts, projects and processes will need you to stumble over them, to search for them, to look closely or even stare at them (not like you stared at the TV since 50 years ago, at youtube since 5 years ago). It needs you to stop worrying about the central hub, website or plattform that you feel like home in. It needs you to stop worrying about any rss-feeds that you only used to feed your identity out of angst in this process of identification, representation and individualisation. Not to learn even more exiting ways of being alone – you can easily find those in the entertainment industry – but to pick up again the idea of communication. Surf around, take off from time to time and play with what and whom you might find.

Read the whole text here on the blog of the Cult of the Dead Cow

Posted in articles, cyber punk | 1 Comment »

March 7, 2011

criticism of the ideology of temporary hedonist comfort zones

by dr0fn0thing

from the el-blog:

this text is meant as an experiment in opening up a concept. we take a term with all its history, put it in the context of todays global society, find it’s ideological meaning and through that it’s limitations in comparison to freedom. 

a text about feeling comfortable in small circles, and what this means for todays status of the world…

some quotes:

it’s not only feeling comfortable, but feeling comfortable in conditions. in that sense it’s less than feeling comfortable as such, it’s having a concrete postive feeling of the surroundings, the feeling that the surroundings are, almost actively, comfortable towards one.

these conditions being “social comfort”:

the competition of isolated individuals means some feel free in their identity and others get lost in the process. to dissolve the identities into post-individual collectivity is not the only negation of these competitive processes. there also remains a space between, not collaborating and not competing, to denounce the idea of productivity and to claim an agile association with itself as the only aim. to have a collaborative existence not for having a profit, but for having existences and collaborations outside the idea of profit. also this image brings up the idea of deviance, to act outside the norm can claim comfort, even if the act itself seemed to aim at finding adventure. people who are bored seek entertainment, and will find lots of it without deviant behavior in mass culture. but people who feel uncomfortable with this mass culture will find their comfort in deviant communities, something that seems adventurous. so the initial decision was not so much to seek adventure, but more one of seeking social comfort.

it’s a trap:

a politics which defends something just because it feels good is itself guilty of not speaking of the surroundings of the comfortable community. the process that was mentioned before, that individuals succeed in competition and liberate themselves on the costs of others, can be transported also to the actions of collectives. the degree of them feeling good marks in the same time how much they won in the competition. it’s a luxury to feel good in a competitive society, and it feels even better in companionship. and since it is not possible under present social conditions to feel good with the global human society, we found a limit of the concept.
while one part of humanity gets presented with a competitive concept of individuality and cooperation, the others are denied even these (e.g. workers still under slave-like conditions without workers rights). this injustice of course has to be dissolved in one direction: claim the luxury of comfortable togetherness for all. this legitimates working with these concepts, it makes the most sense to talk about freedom when it is denied.

while there are positive connotations:

sharing a space and feeling a status between alone and together, to help each other without aiming at reward or even any action in trade, to feel close without having the feeling to loose oneself (in the sense of opening up completely) or without asking for others to open up completely (which is in any ways a strange and illusionist idea), to deny the idea of absolute understanding, and to reclaim the idea of communication from those that think that free communication is possible under the doctrine of market competition.

don’t get fooled into idealization:

the feeling is linked to the presence of one, two or more others, but not to an immediacy with each other human, with whole humanity. this limitation can be transformed into an ambivalence: feeling together, but not unified. to feel the concrete connection with the abstraction as something comfortable is what shall be grasped with this text. these precarious moments of feeling alone in presence, or connected in moving ambivalence, free association instead of collectivizing unification. [...] presence of something diffuse, that becomes concrete in the liberation of identity. not to see oneself as strictly bordered from others anymore, but also not loosing oneself into the abstraction. it’s not yet the conciliation of these two poles, but a metaphor for it. in finding a poetic metaphor, we also accredit the limitations of this mode of freedom. and through that we make the deficit of any positive reference to the idea of freedom tangible. [...] in doing this we also get to grasp the hope for other conditions, that would allow other more far-reaching conciliations of the whole and the particular. what we found now is not a norm to judge the quality of social events, but to find the limits of one image of sociality. what constitutes these limits?

because of the critique of ideology:

the ratio of social experiences is marked by the rationality by which the members of society cooperate and cultivate, how they communicate its culture. which means under present conditions of the primacy of profit that society organizes itself in markets. other doctrines were mentioned in this text before (like the one of reproduction, sexuality), we want to sum them up as ideologies and identities all leading astray of the primacy of humanity. ideologies like productivity or industrial progress, or more specific ideas like the invisible hand of the market. they replace and overlay the primacy of the well-being of all humans, the test which all these ideologies and identities have to pass. [...] this is presented to give momentum to this way of thinking, and not to present a normative description of potential retreats of freedom.

the way this is done in the text is by reflecting on one specific word and some images:

the conditions of the whole don‘t disappear when focusing on a partiality. this also means that we cannot envision a concept of freedom that is not touched by the totality of society and its rationalities. by focusing a word that is an image, a concept, we do so to show what the limitations of that concept are. when we search for the limitations of a concept, we recall the history of the concept and find the boundary of history itself, which means finding history. or in other words: when we find the limitation of freedom, we find the historical development of freedom.

now go and read it: Gemütlichkeit – el.blogsport.de (an english text about a german word)

Posted in articles, blogs, debates in progress, radical theory | 2 Comments »

February 22, 2011

featured artists: Gui Boratto

by fancypunk01

Obviously there is no need to write something for a superstar dj here indeed. It is also partly against of our restrictions , style and policy that we don’t really like superstar djs to be featured here as we don’t like rock stars nether. Today After listening  again the take my breath away of Gui Borrato released in 2009 , I will make an exception. I may explain why and the reasons behind it. I feel sometimes we are too Eurocentric , for instance apart from few  Australian,   we never write often regarding artist from other parts of the world. Sometimes its a question of diversity and lack of knowledge, and  some others the lack of readers and friends contribution from countries beyond Europe.

Gui Borrato is a techno/tech house/house and minimal orientated dj and producer originally from Brazil. Although Brazil is a poor country , there is a huge party scene , amazing djs , music producers and beaches especially in the south part of the country if you plan to visit some time soon. We are certainly look forward to visit the next years and write more things concerning latin american party sence as well.

Gui Borrato is definitely one of the most talented djs from that part of the globe , currently playing almost everywhere-biggest-best clubs of the world and so on .A good example could be Berghain/panorama bar where Gui Borato is often there as I remember or as I can check on google.  He counts many of good collaborations as well as two albums both released at Kompakt (popular label based on Cologne)   and tones of remixes some very nice indeed.At Wikipedia you can find the whole list with Gui Borrato’s work. Personally the motivation to write about Gui Borrato was his album “take my breath away” which even though that genre usually  is far away of my taste of music , I found it interesting this evening. I bet many of you like Gui Borrato therefore I recommend  an article and an interview found on the web from various blogs with further information , perhaps announced gigs etc. Bellow you can find a nice track from “take my breath away”. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything on soundcloud.

Posted in articles, artists, special editions, techno, videos | 4 Comments »

January 25, 2011

Featured Artists : Ancient Methods

by mnanotek

Ancient Methods consists of 2 DJs based in Berlin, Baeks and Trias. Before they decided to form Ancient Methods were more well known for their residencies in the old Tresor club.Their regular residencies in a small, dark basement like Tresor’s bunker room has obviously had a big impact on their sound. A sound that has been supported by DJs such as Surgeon, Adam X & Regis & has been characterized as ‘pitch black techno war funk’.According to them the fact that they got bored of minimal encouraged them to start Ancient Methods.They released their first album (First Method) in 2007 & since then the buzz behind their name has been growing bigger & bigger. So far they’ve released 5 eps on their label(Ancient Methods) & a 2010 collaboration with Adam X (Cardiac Dysrhythmia).  The artwork clearly reflects their medieval mood that’s full of smashing snares & distorted,spooky effects.

They manage to create raw, cutting edge industrial atmospherics with an oldskool  feel & it simply is techno at its very best!

Don’t miss the chance to catch them live in:

London 4/2 at Corsica studios

Berlin 19/2 at Mikz

Minehead Uk 11/3 at BLOC weekend

http://www.myspace.com/ancientmethods

Posted in articles, artists, berlin, techno | 2 Comments »

January 7, 2011

2010 London Highlights

by mnanotek

And yes 2011 has already kicked in like morning caffeine, but let’s not forget what 2010 offered us music wise!

30 January 2010: FABRIC threw another quality night to remember with amazing Mr Ben Klock & Steffi straight from my favorite OST GUT TON.

12 February 2010 : KOMPAKT’S Perc shook T Bar’s (which we truly miss after its closure) dancefloors.

6 March 2010 : FABRIC’S marathon party successfully named ‘On & On… & On’ lasted ….3 nights!!We enjoyed an amazing line up which included Dave Clarke, Ellen Allien, Konrad Black, Onur Ozer, Radio Slave, Seth Troxler, Dinky, Craig Richards &Terry Francis just to name a few.

11 March 2010 : AUTECHRE LIVE !Got nothing more to say about this event!!

20 March 2010 :Fabric again but this time with the return of Ricardo Villalobos & Frequency 7 (Surgeon & Ben Sims) taking over the decks.

5 April 2010 :What a great after party that was! With Dario Zenker(Harry Klein) who kept us going until very late at Cable Club.

09 April 2010 : ‘THEM’ brought us a fantastic mixture of advanced electronica at Corsica Studios. Kuedo aka Jamie Vex’d, Boxcutter & PLANET MU’S Rudi Zygadlo fully entertained our ears!

23 April 2010 : Now who doesn’t know one of the most acclaimed film directors and video artists Chris Cunningham?Just remember Bjork’s ‘All is Full of Love’ or Aphex Twin’s ‘Windowlicker’. His live show at Royal Festival Hall was a pure multimedia experience!

21 May 2010 : Cable Club was absolutely bombarded by Mr Aaron Funk’s aka Venetian Snares super exquisite sounds!! Along with him we listened to Luke Vibert, Ceephax Acid Crew & Shitmat.

29 May 2010 : Back to techno now with another warehouse party that hosted Mobilee Records. Anja Schneider & Sebo K showed Londoners what Berlin techno is about!

12 June 2010 : ‘KREATURES’ brought us something I’ve never experienced before! Ultra realistic animatronics, cutting edge electronic music, innovative performance and state of the art visuals. The line up was more than impressive with artists such as : Starkey & Milanese from Planet mu, Untold, Bass Clef, Flint kids & the biggest surprise of the night for me, the incredible Mr Ankle pants!

16 July 2010 : An OVERKILL night can only be killer for sure! Some of the artists that send us elsewhere were: KID606,Drumcorps, Dj Scotch Egg, Loops Haunt, N>E>D & Ed Rush to name a few.

31 July 2010 : Warehouse parties are always amazing especially when combined with fine techno, this time with POPOF (Coccoon) & Gui Borratto (Kompakt). Lovely!

11 September 2010 : Cable Club was taken by a storm named Shed. Straight from Berlin and Ost Gut Ton of course. With him one of my favorite & most respected artists Surgeon! Blast!

18 September 2010 : Aphex Twin’s infamous Rephlex records threw a rare event to remember! We listened to Bogdan Raczinski, DMX Crew, Ceephax, Wisp & Aleksi Perala.


25 September 2010 : Sweden’s DRUMCODE is one of my favorites & this event was totally spot on! It took place in an impressive warehouse which kept us bouncing  for hours with Adam Bayer’s, Chris Liebing’s & Alan Fitzpatrick’s quality basslines!

22 October 2010 : Another night another rave! BANGFACE are to blame this time who brought us I:GOR, A Guy Called Gerald and…….OTTO VON SCHIRACH straight from Miami!!BASS-BASS-BASS

27 November 2010 : We end this amazing year the way we started it.With…Ost Gut Ton which means Berghain which means the Berlin concrete temple of quality techno! That label party was an absolute gem of a night! Loved every second of it! Ben Klock played an unbelievable 7 hour set that left us mesmerized!


…party on!!!

Posted in articles, best of 2010, electronica, London, party reports, techno | 7 Comments »

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