Living intensely while there is energy without thinking about the future is not a very metaphysical idea, but it is strong enough to attract young people for many generations and to inspire socio-cultural movements as it was and still is Punk.

To talk about the birthplace of Punk, I would have to mention thousands of places, artists and books, but we will be content with a little snack from the book Please, Kill me: The uncensored oral history of Punk; in its pages we can find the direct statements of New York artists such as Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Nico, David Bowie, Andy Warhol…, among the most popular ones.

Punk was born in two cities: London and New York, but in this book vicissitudes are focused in this last city and in the most active night club of the moment, the CBGB. There, unknown people like the mythical The Stooges, Blondie, The velvet underground, The Ramones, etc…started to play.

We could say that both the book and punk itself are about drugs, music and youth. But there is a situational background, the socio-economical crisis and some more transcendental motives. Frustration, misunderstanding, search make each tortured story, including Iggy Pop, Syd Vicious or Joey Ramone’s, become epic stories of fallen angels who seek to fill an empty gap, which do not stop to think about the cause, but fight to eradicate it. And they become, because of their energy and empathy for those feelings, heroes of modern times, both for those who act like them and for the more bourgeois customs.

However, not all protagonists turn out to be ephemeral flames. There are people like David Bowie, Lou Reed or Patti Smith, who had a more balanced mind and despite it, they also succeeded in making people feel something similar and necessary that seems essential to stay alive through time in the collective imagination. David Bowie, coming from a middle-class family and always well advised by their representatives, comes close but not mixed and used the name of Iggy in his own benefit, because he lacks the authenticity that only the necessity offers. Others, like Lou Reed, in an intellectualized way, sit on the sidelines standing above everything and everyone. And then Patti Smith, who despite her momentum as a poet and rocker abandons partly her concerns in favor of her own welfare and the creation of a family. In short, the story of how a generation is born and dies.

Sonia Teruel

And now, is there that endless energy yet? Of course, and so it is punk. A walk through Berlin can offer a great showcase; they may not be the same ones, but something similar to them remains, that same empty feeling of not fitting within the rules of society. Rent apartments in Berlin and go to one of the most punk cities of nowadays.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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If you are looking for the perfect vibrator you might get lost in the jungle of products nowadays. The sex industry has something to offer for everyone. And this is how this new product in the shape of a spoon was developed. But what’s the secret of this “spoon”? Basically it functions just like a vibrator the only thing is…this thing doesn’t vibrate.

So what is it that we can do with this „vibrator“? The basic idea is to be able to penetrate the female deeper. The innovative shape of a spoon allows to completely “pat down” the vagina. In addition, this device is very easy to clean, it’s discreet and most of all friendly to our environment, because it doesn’t require batteries.

But just because this device is easy to handle doesn’t mean you shouldn’t handle it with care. You should definitely use lubricant when using “the spoon” to make sure she fully enjoys it. It is very easy to reach the g-spot with this device…

mia1603

Our recommendation is to rent apartments in Berlin to test this new device. Here you will have all the (sexual) freedom in the world.

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It is a recent trend among contemporary artists to create spaces where they can develop ideas with others and work on several interdisciplinary projects. Nicolas Bourriaud, one of the few contemporary philosophers, who dared to write about the heterogen artistic processes, compares contemporary artists to DJs and noticed that art no longer produces originality, but picks up already existing signs.

Therefore you can compare the artist to a DJ who creates a sort of musical journey through time by mixing different songs. And it is true that some practices today resemble more the production of a movie, when for example the director coordinates a series of activities which are being carried out by experts.

One of these projects in the studio of Olafur Eliasson founded in Berlin in 1995. At first the studio only had a small group of collaborators who assisted Olafur Eliasson with his projects. Today over 35 people are part of the studio including carpenters, specialized technicians, architects, artists, archivists, historians, cooks and administrators. All of them work with Eliasson on different experiments, developments, productions and art installations etc.

Olafur Eliasson (born in Copenhagen in 1967) ist known for projects that are of short-lived nature and match the place where they take place. His work is coordinated according to the viewer and without the look of the audience his work doesn’t work. One of the most interesting projects was “The Weather Project”, an installation in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Gallery (2004) where an artificial sun illuminated the space and a mirror on the ceiling reflected the visitors. Olafur Eliasson represented Denmark at the Biennale in Venice in 2003.

For more information: www.olafureliasson.net

menschauser

If you would like to know more about this interesting project rent apartments in Berlin and enjoy the broad offer of contemporary art.

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400 years after the death of Caravaggio, we are now witnessing a revival of interest in one of the greatest geniuses of western cultural heritage. Known worldwide as one of the most important painters of the Italian Baroque, this year the legacy of the artist is being commemorated with new publications and a mammoth exhibition in Rome, impressive not only for the number of works shown – a total of 24 oils – but also by the number of visitors it attracted.

Now the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin joins in on the rediscovery of the famous painter with a fantastic exhibition entitled  ”Homage to Caravaggio,” opened on  November 12th, and shows some of the most iconic works of the Italian master including “Love” and “John the Baptist”, which are on loan from Rome to Berlin for this exquisite tribute.

Of special interest are three mysterious black and white reproductions of some of the most daunting works of the painter, which will be on display.  They are mysterious because they are works that were considered lost since the end of World War II, such as “St. Matthew and the Angel”,  and were thought to be part of more than 400 works, that historians speculate, were burned in a bunker in Berlin Friedrichshain 1945 by the Russians.

However, many experts believe that these works are still intact, as since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union, some have re-emerged. Where exactly they are today, however, remains a mystery.

More information: http://www.smb.museum/smb/kalender/details.php?lang=en&objID=26589&typeId=10

Heloise Battista

Discover the world of Caravaggio when you rent apartments in Berlin and see this exhibit.  Let yourself be amazed by the soulcapturing realism.

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Throughout the history of twentieth century culture there are few places as mythical as the UFA studios in Berlin. All the great masters of German Expressionism worked here, from Murnau to Fritz Lang, Dietrich to Jannings. UFA studios were a quantum point responsible for charting the moon, the cabaret, The Blue Angel, the asylum Holstenwall, the streets of Düsseldorf, even the futuristic city-state of Metropolis, a film whose commercial failure was almost capable of sinking the studios forever.

But they were also the snowy mountains that launched the careers of Leni Riefenstahl and, more ominously, the headquarters from which Joseph Goebbels designed Nazi propaganda film.

However, for some people, the UFA studios are second to the  Hansa studios, the nerve center from which the so-called Berlin trilogy of David Bowie emerged: Low, Heroes (both in 1977) and Lodger (recorded in New York in 1979).

In his first wave of fame, Bowie was incarnated as an androgynous alien called to a suicidal brink by English rock vocals after battling the Spiders from Mars. Then he was a kind of Orwellian hybrid creature that exposed his rebellious claws in the cities and highways of America, making musing that to use his own metaphor, was like a fly that had fallen into a milk carton. Then a shift to the persona of a stylized and sexually ambiguous West Coast crooner comfortable moving between Frank Sinatra and soul, between the funk and Nina Simone. Mesmerized by the siren song of Kraftwerk and Neu!, his next destination was, against all odds, Germany’s UFA studios, where he not only wrote two memorable albums with Iggy Pop but also, along with Brian Eno, shaped the enormously influential and sophisticated electronic sound  with a decadent aesthetic that can be heard in that trilogy.

You could say, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, Bowie first took Los Angeles and then took Berlin, and in the transition between the two imperial cities,  a new character, the Thin White Duke, and a disc, appropriately named Station to Station, was born. It has just been reissued in a luxury box in a few months ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary. Rather than a simple memorial, the fundamental paradox of Bowie’s oeuvre is that this transitional album between two styles, two continents and two cities, is, due to its transitional nature, one of the best and most fundamental Bowie albums.

Paul Oilzum

There is no better way to pass a cold winter´s eve in apartments in Berlin than listening to a newly remastered David Bowie album on vinyl, at an appropriately loud volume, while nursing a glass of schnapps.

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The central Berlin cinema Babylon Mite goes beyond the film and, among other higlights, has regular literary activities programmed under the title: Literature in vivo.  The name of the cinema, Babylon is intended to honor the cultural center of ancient Mesopotamia.

Literature in vivo offers attendants a chance to deal with literature in a social venue and on the big screen.  The group brings as authors to the public for organized lectures, interviews and book signings. This event offers a warm, comfortable place in which to share that experience is usually solitary, and helps broaden the relationship between an author and his fans.  

Programming includes national and international, authors from all genres and activities, famous writers, cult favorites and children’s authors all have a place here. During January, plan on seeing the premiere of the latest book by Richard David Precht, reading the fairy tale Die kleine Hexe in February or Der kleine Wasserman in April.

Precht is a  writer, journalist, political philosopher and critic with a growing reputation in Germany, and he will present his latest book Die Kunst kein Egoist zu sein, not yet translated into any other languages. Following the success of his latest book, Wer bin ich – und wenn ja, wie viele? (English: “Who Am I – And If So, How Many?”   He embarks on another philosophical adventure, trying to unravel the reason for such widespread attitudes and selfishness and competitiveness, and other things that seem to cause problems.

Also look out for smaller readings of popular German children’s stories, played respectively by renowned actors like Otfried Preußler and Heike Makatsch, known for their roles in films like  Aimee and Jaguar or Goodbye Lenin! and television productions such as Keine Lieder über Liebe.

For more information: http://www.babylonberlin.de/

Sonia Teruel

Have a literary experience when you rent apartments in Berlin just steps away from Alexanderplatz.

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The Bauhaus school was one of the most groundbreaking and influential in the fields of art, design, photography and, especially, architecture. The best-known names that relate to it are perhaps the Hungarian photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and the revolutionary architect and designer Walter Gropius, who founded this legendary school in Weimar, Germany in 1919.

One of the names that are perhaps not as well known with respect to the legendary school is perhaps the photographer Grete Stern, born in 1904 in Cologne.  She began her studies at the Bauhaus in Berlin in the twenties. There she met her future husband, Horacio Coppola with whom she immigrated to Argentina in the thirties, where she would live until her death in ’98.

Now the Dahlem Ethnological Museum in Berlin devotes a fascinating exhibition to some of her lesser known works, in which she explored the social realities of various ethnic groups in the Chaco region. The ethnological studies she made are of particular interest because in the melting pot of Argentina, this region is particularly unique, with large populations of native peoples as well as different eastern European immigrants.

The result is an intimate and moving series of photographs documenting the daily lives of these groups, their crafts, how they live and work. Stunning portraits highlight the personal and emotional dimension of their lives, both on the photographer’s side as well as by the sitter. This extensive work also reveals the historical changes occurring in the Chaco region, underscoring their ethnological value.

Heloise Battista

If you are interested in ethnology or Bauhaus rent apartments in Berlin and get an up close look at Grete Stern´s fascinating photography.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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With the economy in a rut, you might be thinking of moving. Spain, a country among the hardest hit by the economic crisis, is experiencing substantial immigration, not only motivated by economic factors. Berlin is a major destination for migration thanks to its rich artistic and cultural production.

The drive to evolve, move and change keeps human being alive. Thus the most productive artistic periods often occur during hard times, as dissatisfaction pushes people to make some changes. But living abroad for awhile during university is not comparable with immigration. Immigrating can be a jump into the void, or at best, a departure to another world.

The reasons can be quite varied, running away from oneself, others, simply to make more money or find a better job. But what all movers have in common is that they are willing to change enough to face an uncertain gamble, based on the fatalistic (or not) belief that there is nothing to lose, and so much to gain. The thrill of the unknown is a powerful motivator.

No doubt each country receives and generates different types of immigration, depending on its unique economic, social and political climate. In Europe the main reason for immigration today is the economic crisis, which is pushing the population from south to north. But the economy affects more than just having or not having money, how one makes it is also important. Work has to do with more than economics, and becomes a matter of personal satisfaction or frustration. This motor drives the search for better opportunities in another country, and conversely, learning another culture and language,  can expand one’s possibilities, allowing them to do more than just rot in stultifying desk job with soulless blowhards.

Spain is experiencing this type of migration now, with people leaving for other places in Europe, especially vibrant cities like Berlin. And that is because in  Berlin, though perhaps one is not guaranteed fulfillment through work, the economy is such that  one can have free time to pursue their own projects and  low rents on large spaces  mean plenty of places,  both expository and creative spaces,  to work and form part of an artistic community.

People come from all over the world to Berlin to work and make money, as clearly they did not come for the weather, rather these immigrants must come equipped to adapt to the winter months in hibernation, which implies a degree of insight or capacity to maintain and develop one’s independent creativity.

Sonia Teruel

Perhaps that is why, like Paris, Berlin has now become the cultural and artistic capital of Europe, leaving excessive, costly, decadent London behind. Rent apartments in Berlin and you can also say you were there.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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Legendary discotheque Berghain / Panorama bar is famous not only in Berlin but all over the world. More than just a discotheque, it sums up the spirit of the city. There, all barriers are blurred, where are not any retaining wall that separates normal from abnormal, legal from  illegal, your heart from your mind.  In Berghain anything goes, as long as it’s peaceful and respectful.

All sorts of urban tribes, especially techno lovers and gay club kids can be found, every weekend, in rain or snow, waiting in the queue to get their piece of freedom in this huge two story club. The first room at street level is Berghain, where the male homosexual public likes to congregate. And upstairs, Panorama bar is smaller but remains open longer, as long as the public wants to stay. Weekends can be very long in Berlin as the equally large clubs have no fixed closing time, so you can party from Friday night to Saturday morning. That’s why some people get up on Sunday morning and go directly to the club, and the most extreme, those who spend more than a day of celebration in the same nightclub. Despite prohibitions on taking mind-altering substances, more than a few patrons seem to be breaking the rules.

Between different spaces there is space for booths and dark rooms, also differentiated between gay and mixed. However, these are not the only places that one can be intimate, any  sofa, corner, stall or  sink  is pretty much fair game, without starting any type of scandal  in this permissive environment.

It is, therefore, a place where anything can happen and one can only let they go and enjoy the hypnotic rhythms of electronic music, directly from the hands of the best Djs in the world capital of good Djs. Every Friday and Saturday they give a tolerant but demanding public what they want. Sometimes they even open on weekdays, but only in extraordinary cases, for parties that are even more subversive, including sadomasochistic sexpartys and others in which paraphilia and coprophilia are the protagonists.

Sonia Teruel

If you can´t resist the savage call of the night, rent apartments in Berlin and partly like an animal.

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Translated by: salome antigone
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Berlin’s history keeps many secrets which have yet to be discovered, and although all of them are slowly coming to light, others may have been forgotten. With the rise of the decadent aesthetic of the squat, many abandoned places are once again teeming with artistic life;  not only marked by graffiti and inhabited by squatters, but also attracting the attention of photographers, filmmakers and other artists.

Among them, one of the areas of  public attention is the Teufel mountain (devil’s mountain), where after the Second World War the NSA (National Security Agency) built one of the largest listening stations, to survey the radio emissions emanating from eastern Germany, the GDR, and part of Poland.

The base has been closed for years, although as shown by the crudely patched holes in the security fence you can see it has been the target of graffiti and a backdrop for the recording of German and American films for years. But those responsible for it has been finally opening it illegally to the public are a group of squatters living in a small tower away from the central buildings who take advantage of the increasingly common visits to the site with a stand that sells coffee, tea and food.

The site is visibly in decline, but its essential features can still be recognized, like the dining room and a small prison. Also, there are great views from the main tower of the lakes that surround it and the Olympic stadium, which is practically next door. At the end of the tower is a room that has been used for music recordings, as it has a dome shape and is completely closed with the exception of a window, producing a distorted echo which offers many sonic possibilities.

See for yourself what this space has to offer, and find out if the rumors that David Lynch has purchased the land for the purpose of use as a meditation center.

Sonia Teruel

Teufelsberg is recommended for the restless eyes weary of classic tourist sites, just rent apartments in Berlin and explore.


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Translated by: salome antigone
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