Voids: Berlin 1989-2019
I’d like to share a project of mine from the fall semester of my year in Berlin. The end product, as well as my memory of the process itself, epitomize my time in Berlin, one of expansion and exploration. The political, cultural, and historical significance of my surroundings drew something out of me that hadn’t been accessed in months. This project is the result of the vivid inspiration I felt emanating from the city and from myself as our paths crossed for the 30-year anniversary of an epochal event—the Mauerfall, November 9, 1989.
My video captures what I noticed when I walked through the city, what I paid attention to and cared to photograph—those voids and corners that somehow resembled the Berlin I had in my head: post-Mauerfall ‘90s Berlin.
Password: Voids8919
Artist Statement/Written Accompaniment to Video
Berlin’s days as a “poor but sexy” city have largely passed, but remnants of its distinctive post-Mauerfall aesthetic are still visible to those looking for it. Throughout my video piece, I attempt to capture this visual aesthetic, to the degree it still exists in Berlin, by juxtaposing my own footage with existing footage taken from German films of the post-1989 era in Berlin. I included snippets from Die Mauer (1990), Ostkreuz (1991), Berlin Babylon (2001), and, although it was made a few years before the Mauerfall, Der Himmel über Berlin (1987), a quintessential Westberlin film. To set up my own shots, I drew upon the visual style of Dietrich Oltmanns, Harald Hauswald, and Robert Conrad, all former East German photographers who shot black and white photos, most notably (for my purposes) of dilapidated architecture and vacant industrial spaces. These photographs served as inspiration for my own shots, which tend to be quite close-up, in order to focus on the textural quality of remaining old buildings in Berlin and to detach them from their now-gentrified contexts.
© Dietrich Oltmanns
© Dietrich Oltmanns
© Robert Conrad
© Harald Hauswald
Keeping this photographic style in mind, I also tried to mimic the types of recurring shots I noticed throughout the various films—there are static shots of buildings, and there are shots that pan horizontally in order to capture a landscape. Given the unfortunate scarcity of locations in the center of Berlin that offer entire landscapes devoid of both gentrification and blatant signs of 2019, I was confined to filming single buildings or quadrants that retain some unrecognizable quality (or, if recognizable, that are at least reminiscent of the era in question). While capturing my footage, I felt a certain nostalgia for a time so often invoked when people attempt to describe the essence of Berlin—that immediate post-Mauerfall moment in the ‘90s, when techno sprouted up as an instrument for organic reunification of the two Berlins, and when artists squatted for studio space in unclaimed, vacant buildings in the former East.
Ulrich Gutmair’s 2013 book, Die ersten Tage von Berlin: Der Sound der Wende, explores this new scene, which at the time brought desirability to former East Berlin, but which in hindsight has led to the widespread gentrification of former Eastern districts centered around art, such as Mitte, Scheunenviertel, and Prenzlauer Berg. He emphasizes the vastly different views of former East Berlin—that of its pre-Mauerfall inhabitants and that of incoming West German and international youth, who saw creative opportunity in its inexpensive, decaying spaces: “Die Leute aus dem Osten wollten die Mauer hinter sich lassen, Reisefreiheit ist eine ihrer zentralen Forderungen. Dass auch Leute zu ihnen kommen würden, wenn die Mauer weg ist, und zwar nicht nur zu Besuch, daran hatten sie nicht gedacht” [“The people from the East wanted to leave the Wall behind them, freedom of travel is one of their central claims. That people would also come to them when the Wall was gone, and not only to visit, they hadn’t thought of."] (Gutmair 94). This particular Berlin (and its accompanying aesthetic) was formed only by the circumstances put forth by the German division (in particular, the German Democratic Republic as a phenomenon), and before that, by the Europe-wide and also German-specific destruction brought by World War II and National Socialism, and even before that, by the massive currency inflation and general failures of the Weimar Republic in the interwar period. Perhaps we can understand the Mauerfall as more than a singular event, but rather, as the culmination of a nearly century-long chain of destabilizing events in Germany, signaling a new beginning, a “Wende,” as this period is often called.
Today, Berlin (or perhaps not all of Berlin, but certainly its development interests) often markets itself by invoking its ‘90s image—scrappy, free, artistic, and characteristically “poor but sexy,” although the city is no longer quite so poor, and arguably not quite so sexy, either. Berlin as a symbol, however, persists, despite the discrepancy between the Berlin that generated this symbol and the vastly different Berlin of today. Gutmair argues that despite development interests and the lack of open space to create, Berlin, as of 2013, had remained attractive to creatives: “Möglich war das, weil es Platz gab, passiert ist es, weil es genügend Leute gab, die Zeit, Kraft, und Ideen investiert haben. Kreative Leute gibt es immer noch genügend, die Stadt wächst … Die Jungen und Kreativen zieht es vor allem aus dem EU-Ausland nach Berlin” [“It was possible because there was space; it happened because there were enough people who had invested time, power, and ideas. There are still enough creative people—the city is growing … The youth and creatives move primarily from EU countries to Berlin.”] (Gutmair 248). Is this still true in 2019, or is Berlin aging and growing stale after its full-scale reinvention only thirty years ago? Changes to the city’s visual landscape, such as the closure and upcoming development of long-standing artist squat Tacheles, or the sterile, highly commercialized, and frankly, quite depressing Potsdamer Platz development, seem to mark the beginning of the end of Berlin as an affordable, edgy, fringe European city. In terms of mass-gentrification, Budapest, Kraków, or Zagreb may be next in line.
Perhaps this is part of today’s main threat to Berlin—it is so open to fetishization, so easily molded into what the eager, “artistic” international individual, perhaps the largest gentrifying force, envisions it to be. I am aware that my video may exhibit a fetishized, perhaps sickeningly nostalgic version of what I imagine Berlin in the ‘90s to have been like. I accept this as part of my learning process as a foreigner, especially as an American, in Berlin. My choice to use a song by Fischerspooner, an early-2000s New York City-based electroclash duo, as the backdrop for my video, is intended to provide a sense of structure for the images and to evoke the chugging, forward-moving feeling (but not the literal sound) that characterized Berlin techno in the ‘90s. The song, entitled “!@*$%#” (simply titled, “Fucker,” on the original release), comes from an album I grew up listening to, and it reminds me of a stripped-down, New York-ified snippet of the techno I have experienced while here. I felt it was important not to superimpose either a well-known or an obscure early Berlin techno anthem onto already literal images of ‘90s Berlin, as this would add yet another layer of a manufactured nostalgia I’m not in a position to fully contribute to.
Given that the first incarnation of Berlin’s techno scene was a direct result of the abundant industrial and dilapidated architecture in former East Berlin, including some reference to techno seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, this is another cultural sphere often invoked to declare Berlin’s impending “death.” The changing landscape of the city, characterized by widespread occupation and development of previously vacant industrial buildings, poses a certain threat to Berlin nightlife, at least for some who lived through its “high point.” In the exhibition book for No Photos on the Dance Floor! Berlin 1989-Today, recently at C/O Berlin, film director Romuald Karmakar foresees a bleak fate for Berlin techno: “The city’s empty spaces quite literally gave the music a physical space in which it could develop. As these spaces vanish, the significance of the music wanes” (Hoffmann 15). While this may be true, and Berlin techno may be slowly fading out, perhaps we could also interpret the city’s current electronic music scene as a direct link to the immediate post-Mauerfall era, and furthermore, as a sign that at least one of Berlin’s modern characteristic features is not yet lost. It seems that to a degree, Berlin techno as emblem of the city’s post-Mauerfall history preserves its identity and symbolic value, even today.
It was important for me to set the images to various beats in the music (another reason to use electronic music), in order to generate a certain pace throughout the video. To a certain extent, I placed like images together (based on composition, coloring, or movement), while also attempting to disperse my own footage somewhat evenly among the historic footage. When I began making the video, I had no specific image in mind that I thought fitting for the last shot. As I crafted the end of my video and had limited clips leftover, I searched through each of my selected films once more and found this close-up shot of what looks like a GDR-era Plattenbau structure being demolished. I thought it would be visually interesting and suggestive if reversed. For me, this shot at the very end conjures up the obvious questions of low-quality, homogenous commercial developments (and the tear-downs that make space for them), but also more nuanced questions of the city’s changing appearance. Is its character being torn down along with its older buildings, or has Berlin been rebuilt since 1989, albeit in a more intangible sense, into an entirely new city, distinct from each of its previous incarnations? Is Berlin’s spirit linked to its architecture? If so, Berlin must accept its imminent death. If not, can this intangible something innate to Berlin ever be killed?
Works Cited:
Berlin Babylon. Dir. Hubertus Siegert. Perf. Günter Behnisch, Helmut Jahn, und I.M. Pei. S.U.M.O Film, 2001. Film.
Der Himmel über Berlin. Dir. Wim Wenders. Perf. Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, and Solveig Dommartin. Janus Films, 1987. Film.
Die Mauer. Dir. Jürgen Böttcher. DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme, 1990. Film.
Fischerspooner. “!@*$%#.” #1. Capitol, 2001. Digital file.
Gutmair, Ulrich. Die ersten Tage von Berlin: Der Sound der Wende. Berlin: Ullstein, 2013. Print.
Hoffmann, Heiko and Felix, eds. No Photos on the Dance Floor! Berlin 1989-Today. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2019. Print.
Ostkreuz. Dir. Michael Klier. Perf. Laura Tonke, Miroslaw Baka, and Suzanne von Borsody. Sputnik Film, 1991. Film.