For some reason unbeknownst to me, our art collective !WOWOW! was once again asked upon to fly to a foreign country for the purpose of getting wasted and running around like maniacs. All in the name of art, of course. This time the invitation came from the annual Transmediale Festival in Berlin. (Did you know they eat hotdogs for breakfast there? So weird.) So, last weekend, about thirty of us took a holiday from our dilapidated London squat to dress up like cardboard robots, eat sausages out of vending machines, and stick pretzels up transvestites’ assholes in Germany. Big fun. Here are some photos taken by the artist Matthew Stone while we were there. He shot them all on his mobile phone.
Apparently having a bunch of squatters staying at your hostel lowers your street cred. This was taped to the door, waiting for us when we arrived. We then spent the rest of the weekend attempting to convince the other guests that we were, in fact, the real deal. No fake dirtbags here.
We spent the first day there making giant robot suits out of cardboard for a magical, interpretative robot dance planned for later on that night.
Halfway through the performance this asshole wandered onstage and started shouting something about art Nazis. Matthew reacted by turning around and punching him in the face with his giant robot hand. Afterwards he said something along the lines of “I’ve never punched anyone before, but I’m glad that the first time I did I was in a robot suit doing an interpretative dance to an instrumental version of The Rolling Stones Paint it Black.”
Try singing an acappella version of N’SYNC’s I Want You Back while a bunch of wasted Germans shout at you in words you can’t understand and throw beer cans at your head. This was meant to be an innocent pop musical by our performance art group, America’s Next Pop Models. It took a turn for the ridiculous around the 30 second mark when the audience started going all agro during a rendition of Wannabe, and suddenly the entire performance transformed into a drunken growl-fest with everyone rolling around in a giant human ball whilst making various animal noises. I like to think that thirty years from now I’ll be able to think back, laugh and say, “Hey, remember that time we went to Berlin and got bottled whilst roaring?” Ahh…memories.
The beginnings of the human ball. That’s Lauren in the background channelling the energies.
The performance artist The-O, doing what he normally does. This usually involves him rolling around on the ground covered in glitter, crying, and making everyone around him feel sweaty and uncomfortable.
By 7am no one could stand up so we took to dancing while lying down. You should try it sometime. It’s like exercising, lounging around, and having fun all at the same time.
All in all, the trip was amazing. How can you beat a free trip to Berlin? However, I was magnificently inebriated for most of the weekend so my memories of what actually happened are quite vague. But judging on the pictures it looks like I had a great time.
supermarket trolley full of Lidl booze is a must!