El Corruptor

Most people know Snax as the biggest party taking place twice per year at Berghain. What most people don’t know is that Snax preceded and shaped what later became Berghain. Long story short, Norbert Thormann and Michael Teufele organized parties in the Reichsbahnbunker Friedrichstraße (current Boros Foundation), combining fetish sex with techno called Pervy Party by Snax Club. Later, the party found a permanent location called Lab.Oratory, eventually expanding into two adjacent spaces: Osgut and Panorama Bar. When those buildings were demolished, the club moved to its current location, Berghain. 

Much can be said about what is arguably the most famous and institutionalized club in the world, but one must admit that they are good at what they do. As a sex club, Lab.Oratory is very nicely designed. The bar, the slings with long chains, the lightning, the pissoir, and the candle holders (nobody talks about the candle holders), you can tell someone took their time to think about details. Thus, it is no surprise that the same rigor is applied to their flyer. When we found this lovely flyer for the 2015 easter party by Benedikt Rugar, we couldn’t help but fall into the rabbit hole of Snax’s flyers.

Berghain releases a monthly program of its parties, also inviting artists for each issue. Here is an example by Nicola Napoli

We are tired. Tired of things we should not do. Of the products that do not sell. Of the mistakes that make our art worse. The recipes that are damaging our cooking. The movements that keep our asses flat or the strategies that will finally move our career forward. Tired of the flood of experts that, even in the isolation of our basement Headquarters, manage to shout at us, through thumbnails and catchy titles, the thing we should be doing with our time instead. In a world that is becoming increasingly complex, we are fed up with being the only ones who do not have a grasp of it, still missing a chance to make a profit.

We are tired of the salesy feeling of the internet. In a moment when everybody is an expert, we kind of miss when people were stupid, and their online presence was limited to posting their hobbies and the food they ate. Yes, we miss food photos. But those times are long gone, and now everybody has a Domestika course, is an online movie critic, and has fully transformed their hobbies into side hustles or freelance careers. And between the video hooks and clickbaiting titles, we just find a constant reflux of the same sources, methods, and ideas more diluted with every cycle, which makes us wonder: if everybody knows about marketing, where is the value? How many people do we still need to teach us how to be a full-time artist, draw from imagination, or invest? How many excruciating times do we need to hear about the Pomodoro technique, Atomic Habits, or Rick Rubin?   

It might be our corner of the internet, but it was a feeling that began with OnlyFans videos. We grew up watching amateur porn on xtube, where people use the cameras they have access to show us a bit of their sex life for free. Sometimes you find someone with a profile that documents their horny adventures, and you will binge on their videos with a mix of jealousy and voyeurism. You would follow them to that house party, that toilet stall; there was a storyline, and you rooted for them. But all that is disappearing with OnlyFans, where you can actually feel the labour of the creators and tell that it might be the second of five collabs that person has that week. We don’t find labour sexy.  

While the rest of the world’s expertise grows, our ignorance deepens with inefficiency that hits our profitability. We are not nostalgic people, but we wish someone would bring some sense of fun again, cutting the noise and guiding us on a trip where we can actually learn something -hopefully soon- before we are expected to profit from all aspects of life and record it on video as proof. Behind the glut of guides and opinions, there should be someone tired, lost, and inefficient; we cannot be the only ones.