The art space, a lonely pin, buried deep inside a deserted retail park. Techno, obviously. And Weirdos, self-proclaimed and exquisitely smiley, compared to the sauer-faced doorman we had encountered the day before at Ohm. The party was eight floors up, at the top of an apartment block and the moon was extraordinarily low, an auburn ball of sizzling gas hovering, threatening drips on the horizon. Blade Runner-esc. We dabbed our space-dust and looked out at Mars. If I look to my right, I thought, I’ll see the Earth, hanging and decayed as we left it, a murky polluted smear on the sky, a cigarette burn, a spider with legs of streaky toxic gas.
The music, and 2-euro Prosecco, carried us in a wave, with its everlasting beat and sporadic psych-trance and tribal sounds it moved us, as we lapped the space in less than a minute. There was one room, with speakers that watched in on the dance floor, observing the bunny dipping and bobbing, white ears twitching, and the many tails and tassels. Panels were hung and projected upon behind the DJ, mesmerizing colour that did the tango, had sex and reproduced in yellows and reds. There was also a separate circler room behind the DJ with windows that curved around every wall, pillows and deckchairs scattered the floor. The bar was at the other end, with a balcony smoking area to the right. Sunrise started to creep from that direction, the buildings lost in the blackness became shadows that winked at us with bloodshot eyes.
On the balcony, as the sun smacked the beat harder we were beat too, defeated by forty-eight hours, limbs ceased full of acid that couldn’t stop stamping. A sound that just won’t stop until your feet are stumps in bloody pools. This end of the world feeling, this terrifying look forward was exactly what I had imagined when I thought about Berlin. Everything is seedier with a spotlight to acknowledge it and, as the morning ripped mercilessly through, we co-ordinated our messy exit home.
Image by weeeirdos