Interviews with some of our favorite curators from Berlin, who organise queer parties that open the doors for freedom in the city that never sleeps.

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It has changed a lot since the World War II in Berlin. Probably the most significant changes are happening right now in the nightlife, which is flourishing in Berlin. The city gives life to new bars, clubs and parties every single day. Although people like to say “the city never sleeps” about any big city you should first come to Berlin and see that it stays awake like no other. In this city some parties start on Friday evening and last until Monday noon. And people see Wednesdays and Thursdays as the days to warm up for the long party marathons at the weekends. There is nowhere else in the world where party monsters take partying that serious.

Although it is the capital city of Germany, Berlin has nothing else in common with the rest of the country other than the spoken language. It’s a big bubble, or let’s say, a big safe space not only for the nightlife but also the queer subculture. Like the times before the war, Berlin is giving the people the freedom to express their feelings, thoughts, opinions and encouraging them to be as who they are. Queers from all over the world move to Berlin to bring their brilliant ideas and enrich this heaven. And some of them enrich the nightlife of this city. So that’s why we decided to interview some of these brilliant people, who organize parties that open the door for freedom.

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Photos: Aghia Sophie 

GEGEN
How did it all start? When and why did you come up with the idea of starting this party? How many people are you in the organizing team? 
Gegen started three years ago. As we explain in the “Gegen Manifesto. Against yourself. Around queer narratives”, we play with the word “gegen” in its contradictory meanings. “Gegen” is a complex word in German because it has two opposite meanings.  Historically speaking it means "against", signifying all the counter cultural movements since the very beginning of youth cultures but if you apply the word to time, it means "around". One meaning is closed, defined in terms of space. The other is open and undefined in terms of time. In the contemporary moment the idea of "enemy" - in which a thought and an action can be identifiable as "against" - is not there and is not clear anymore as power relationships changed through the development of post-modernism, globalization and transnationalism.

This gave space to markets to regenerate themselves through the queer-counter cultural movements by producing an oligopoly of empty events repeating themselves until their fast extinction and in the same time by crystallising the institutionalisation of big "queer meccas" which exercise more and more power on the scene.

This process is verifiable in Berlin as the incubator of new world trends in the arts of entertainment. This basic tension gives the spaces and the times for a new proposal to blossom from the ashes of the historical and infamous queer techno party called "SABOT°AGE BERLIN" which characterised fades of mutation in some of the wildest Friedrichshain nights. The aim is playing with the solitude of the political meaning of GEGEN as a suicidal mechanism of the "self" or the sublime crisis of enemy subtraction as the aggression of dialectics. A linguistic game of pop art where the semantic putsch of "Gegen" becomes the broken mirror of its own impossibilities. The electric fear to find oneself multiple by being against oneself and unrecognisable. The dangers of being desireful in a psycho dramatic performance. The political practice of hallucinatory love to defy hate as antagonistic, identitarian mechanism. The unresolved contradiction is the base of a queer philosophy. So this is how we arrived to the concept. The boarding members of the event management were three until now. It´s me (WARBEAR), BOXIKUS, and TOM ASS who is now leaving for San Francisco but he´ll keep on working with us from there.

Which kind of crowd comes into your parties? What kind of crowd did you want to reach in the beginning? Did it change in time? 
A party is rich and alive when you have an identity crisis within so we customize the communication toward different social and cultural groups to bring them together and let them live this fall. And this is exactly the engine that brings GEGEN on. It´s the excitation of not recognizing yourself in the eyes of the other when you come. From a global and a local perspective We have a huge molotov cocktail of people either from the queer scene of kreuzberg and Neükolln. The LGBT community from the gay village of Schöneberg, the political/countercultural scenes of Friedrichshain, the music, academic and art scene of the whole world coming and a storm of individualities, freaks and borderlines floating around for the beauty of a liberating experience.  We are very proud to have a mature crowd and to produce intergenerational relationships. There is this stereotype about partying which is dedicated to young people and this is not true. We have people in their 70s who are coming and mixing up with 18-year old ravers. Diversity is life and curiosity is its fuel.

What makes your party different than the other parties in Berlin? Why do you think people like your party? 
What makes our party different, as I just said, is its non-identitarian praxis. We do perform a queer moment of dispersion where to live the fear of losing yourself and transforming it in a creative act of social relationship. When we open the doors we feel the excitation of people coming in because they want to live this feeling and they feel so liberated that they die to wait for the next one and bring their friends in. This is how it worked and Kit Kat as a club was the perfect platform because they had a huge tradition in working on a queer agenda although the word queer and all its politics and its academia were not defined as a market unit yet. It was the right neutral space on which to converge strange cultural animals and let the heart beat in a collective - but still individualistic - celebration. GEGEN and KIT KAT were destined to delightful and meaningful wedding. It was pure love and empathy since the beginning.

Did the concept of your party change in time? If yes, why did you need to change it?
No because the definition of our concept was the perfect general queer umbrella for an under-concept declination characterizing every event. SO we move the word gegen as an adjective to open the contradiction between the Gegen/Against and the Gegen/Around by playing on concepts regarding queer culture and theory such as Homonormativity, Homonationalism, Geographies of Sexualities and so on with such themes as “Gegen Organs”, “Gegen Orgasm”, Gegen Fetish”, “Gegen You” and so on. For every concept we write a little text analyzing it and we publish it on social medias and in our webesite. Then the text is interpreted with illustration ad sound design by two artists: Stefan Fähler and Fernando Poo. The first is the headmaster of our visual communication with his splendid pop art approach and the second produces a track in every GEGEN by sampling our voices reading the manifesto.

We publish that as a communication strategy to keep the interest and the involvement alive and we do this kind of management as a work of art itself. At the very end of this process we launch a game for a Reduction list. We ask people a question such as “what is your preferred orgasm” or “what is your fetish” so we stimulate people to partecipate and to have a feedback of the theme and we answer to everybody’s e-mail. In the first GEGENS we even used to print the answers and distribute them around or stick them in the walls of the location but it was really too much work so we stopped. What is really interesting - besides the enormous volume of work - i the fact that people do not expect somebody “human” to develop a one-to-one communication and this is another crisis-game we use to produce a post-identitarian experience.

What do you think about the music, club and party scene in Berlin? Are you worried about the changes regarding to gentrification, rising prices and their possible effects on the berliner party scene?
Well we are very honored to say that ours is the only party of 12 hours with four dance floors, researched DJs, live bands, video performers, art installations, free fruits buffets, five lounges and bars and a pool that you can enjoy at the price of 7 euros. We do want to facilitate people to get in and have their part in the experience. For us integration is more important than economy so we do feel we are not part of a berlin killing process of gentrification. This is our politics of party. As Emma Goldman used to say “If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution”.

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PORNCEPTUAL
How did it all start? When and why did you come up with the idea of making this party? How many people are you in the organizing team? 
Pornceptual is an art project that wants to de-contextualize pornography in its usual sense and show that an explicit sexual content can be considered art and a non-explicit one can sometimes also be seen as pornography. It started as an online gallery for erotic art and then became a platform for people to sexually explore themselves in a creative way.

We see this as a way of creating new possibilities of exploration for the human body. The usual body representations in commercial pornography or in even most works of what is described as "erotic art" are very limited.

In order to promote the project and encourage a broader audience to participate, we started to organise a party in Berlin called PORN.

It all started last year in August when a friend asked us to have a one edition party in a small bar he was managing. Since this would be a good way of promoting Pornceptual and getting more people involved, we agreed and in the end we had way more guests than expected. After having a very positive feedback, we moved to a bigger venue and started to host monthly events. Furthermore our organising team is composed by three people: Chris Phillips, Raquel Fedato and Emre Saglam. Besides them, we have two resident Djs: Diego Garcia (Projekt Gestalten) and Victoria Simon.

Which kind of crowd comes into your parties? What kind of crowd did you want to reach in the beginning? Did it change in time?
Pornceptual started as queer project so in the beginning we thought that we would mostly attract attendees from the gay party scene. But at the same time we wanted to keep it very inclusive. Because of that we decided not to restrict the crowd and the idea of being open and avoiding labels is more relatable to our proposal. Currently we have a very mixed and open-minded crowd coming to our events.

What makes your party different than the other parties in Berlin? Why do you think people like your party?
First of all, we are not a usual sex party. Although we encourage people to get naked or to come in kinky or fetishist outfits, this is not mandatory in any sense. It’s all about creating a free sexual atmosphere where people can express themselves. Second, we are proposing a link with the art world. Before thinking about organising parties, we already had Pornceptual as an online gallery for unusual pornography. A way of remarking this connection is proposing a different concept for every edition, from art movements - such as futurism or surrealist - to political or gender related issues.

Even though we have people from all ages, our audience is mostly composed by young people that see this as an opportunity to experiment with their naked bodies and expand their sexual horizons. For instance, we once got an email of someone that wrote: "Thank you. Your parties and your site have, to a very large extent, changed my perception of myself and of sexuality."

Did the concept of your party change in time? If yes, why did you need to change it?
No, the concept itself didn’t change but we definitely started to take it more seriously and invest more time on organisation as we realised the proportion things had taken.

What do you think about the music, club and party scene in Berlin? Are you worried about the changes regarding to gentrification, rising prices and their possible effects on the Berlin party scene?
Berlin has a very unique nightlife and we are lucky to be able to experience this. Disorientating, mind blowing, brutal, never-ending and freaky, this is probably the best clubbing city in Europe. The clubber culture already became a lifestyle and music is a religion. In our opinion, Berlin is a techno capital and we take this into serious consideration for our parties. Inside abandoned factories and business buildings that had to be taken over back in the 90s, Berliners were able to use these as club spaces to create a new identity.

Unfortunately the party scene is slowly changing. The rising prices are forcing some clubs to shut down and more strict laws might soon affect the freedom that parties have to stay open for days. So even though we are based in Berlin we are also expanding to other cities and running future events in London, Amsterdam, Istanbul and Sao Paulo.

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PARTY COLARE
How did it all start? When and why did you come up with the idea of making this party? How many people are you in the organizing team? 
Well! It's funny, we just decided to organize a party to celebrate our first year in Berlin and Gianluca's birthday, not thinking about creating a party with a following. The first idea was to make a house party. We got a nice venue and the party was nicely crowded with an amazing atmosphere! Then, suddenly a lot of friends told us: "Guys, you have to make a party monthly in Berlin!". So, inspired by our energy, friends, people and atmosphere, PartyColare was born and both of us are organizing the party.

Which kind of crowd comes into your parties? What kind of crowd did you want to reach in the beginning? Did it change in time? 
Our party is basically a gay-queer party, but the guests who are reaching PartyColare, are really mixed. That's how we want it goes. We don't want to develop our party just for a precise category. People that want to have fun, feeling in a cosy atmosphere and being free to express themselves. At the moment the "family" is getting bigger.

What makes your party different than the other parties in Berlin? Why do you think people like your party? 
Both of us are really part of the evening during PartyColare; chatting, going around like crazy and taking different feedbacks which are always important. We are not taking us really seriously trying to make the best concept ever or the best party ever but trying to develop PartyColare as much as we can. We love to play with Italian's stereotypes/icon/scandals and culture making fun of it. It's a good opportunity finding friends, meeting new people and dancing good music that goes from disco to electro in a nice venue, to get like into an house party. Everyone might come with a pajamas or a jockstrap, let's have fun!

What do you think about the music, club and party scene in Berlin? Are you worried about the changes regarding to gentrification, rising prices and their possible effects on the berliner party scene? Did the concept of your party change in time? If yes, why did you need to change it?
Our concept still didn't change. We are open for new suggestions, as we said, to develop PartyColare.

For our own experiences we know that Berlin is kind of unique compared to other big cities for the party scene. Berlin is known for the best techno scene in Europe and now is reaching many different kind of music. The party scene is growing a lot, with different moods and parties. What we like most is the freedom that you can have in a club respecting anyway the civil rules. Berlin is already changing a lot, we are living here since 2012 and already we feel changes in many different other situations. In somehow it's already changing a bit the party scene but at the moment we are not really worried about it.