The next day, the 31st, and the Transmediale is now in full swing. The Berlin Biennale is also taking place and the city bustles with people till the late hours. I decide to visit events at the main hall before heading over to Maria for the last set of the night, Ellen Allien.

Ellen Allien

Allien is one of B-Pitch Control‘s artists and a local with a loyal following – the club was still full at 5 or 6 in the morning.

February 1st, a Sunday and the city seems calm and quiet. The day’s programme is also fittingly tranquil, with Maria decorating itself in a strange lounge-style, covering the concrete floor with sweet milky-white beer case seats upholstered with felt, unimaginable from the night before. The theme of they day is “Gendertronics”, and many of the performers are female.

Tsujiko Noriko and Lionel Fernandez

First up is Deco 3, a unit of Tsujiko Noriko from the Austrian label Mego, and Lionel Fernandez. Tsujiko Noriko’s kitsch vocals layered on top of pop-ish melody and sound tracks make for cute and sexy music, but it was a shame that the unsuited sound system could only bring out half of their charm.

AGF

Next to perform is AGF, whose music is the surprise of the night, and Sue Costabile’s visuals. Delicate sounds and deliberate rhythms and AGF’s vocals are interspersed with startling sound effects that quicken or slow down time, whilst the images, if not exactly extraordinary, do nothing to disturb the music, simply lingering quietly.
AGF seems to be involved in other much more experimental installations, and is definitely an artist to be watched.

Terre Thaemlitz

What blows me away the most this evening is a sound and visual installation by Terre Thaemlitz based on the themes of love and peace, gender discrimination and racism. If that list sounds slightly old, then the content is at least convincing, taking these ideas on from an angle not seen before. To simplify, his point is that the concept of love and peace, which has been the yet unattained eternal ideal of mankind, actually acts as the trigger for many of the problems faced today, like war, racism, or gender discrimination.

Extreme in some parts, by the end the installation has forced you to think deeply about these problems. Due to the fact that he is based in Yokosuka, I’ve been able to see him perform in Japan; the last time he was DJ-ing acid house tracks and the contrast between this performance and then made me realise the deep scope of his works.

So far, I’ve concentrated on Club Transmediale, so lets shift the focus now to the actual Transmediale.