Thanks to everybody that came to our show at c/o pop last night. To play in front of 700 people on a Wednesday night at 9pm is pretty overwhelming!!!! And coming up next, tonight at Colognes legendary Studio 672: the fabulous Yore Label Night with Murat Tepeli, Andy Vaz, Rick Wade and myself!!!
I actually am already back in Cologne, and i had to briefly go through my 800 or so pictures I took during that week… so to put together this sequel took me a bit. I am still a little overwhelmed by all the new impressions, and realizing how little I actually know about this little planet of ours… and I am already dying to go back. I also want to use the opportunity to thank all these amazing people that took such great care for me and thought that its worth the effort to fly me all the way out there: Thomas, Yang Bing, Fu Yan, Max, but also Isabelle, Caroline and the rest of the bunch. Thank you all so much! I can’t wait to see you again!
First of all, Beijing is huge. Really huge. Here is a little taste of it, taken from Patrick Yu‘s terrace on the 26th floor:
Here is one of the kiosks i passed several times every day:
and one of these awesome electric scooters. Here you see a very nicely pimped one, look at the pedals:
I also visited the “798 Art District“, a former ammunition factory, which 15 years ago was turned into an underground art area, but as usual and everywhere else around the globe, after some time became a commercial arts & crafts kinda market, with some exceptions. But mostly it became an artist’s nightmare (as you can read in the sign- i hate it when art becomes degraded to something decorative…)
well, yes. It certainly wasn’t “Too Artistic”:
I actually loved this work- Yan Pei-Ming’s “Landscapes of a childhood” which deals with the fate of street children in China:
and even in a fancy gentrified area, the difference between rich and poor is grief and poverty strikes hard, people trying to find something in the garbage, this picture was taken just across the street from a super fancy art gallery:
And across the street of all these galleries, we found an old workers neighborhood:
funny fake shoes: the Kappa couple on top of the Nike swoosh:
and almost everywhere, really huge buildings.
the new CCTV Tower:
And the burned out 40-story Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel, that caught fire during the celebration of the Chinese new year:
The club where the performance would later take place at, the “China Doll”, before the party:
biiig poster in the entrance of the club:
and- the club during the party (sorry for the horrible flash…):
hmm, that was strange- a dance performance in the middle of the party:
the “VIP Lounge” of the Club (the place was even trashier than it looks in the pictures):
the day after, we went to some markets… oh boy, so much revolutionary kitsch (sorry Mao, i did not mean to offend you):
we also went to the “Summer Palace“, i guess that was the only really touristy thing i did all those days:
pollution was really bad that day… the grey tone is actually from the bad air, it was not about to rain:
still the Summer Palace, with dear Thomas, one half of the White Rabbit Club, on the stairs (hey mate, thank you so much for everything!)
So: i am actually here, meaning, in Beijing… which is a little unbelievable in my opinion. I landed a bit more than 24 hours ago, and am pretty overwhelmed, pretty jet lagged, and pretty happy. It’s hot and humid as hell, the pollution does not really let the sun through, I am really well taken care for, the food is beyond anything I was hoping for, and the city is… well… much larger than it looks in the pictures bellow. It’s huge. And i haven’t even seen a small percentage so far.
Here is the proof that i will really really be playing here:
sadly, the “white rabbit”, the club that i was supposed to perform at, was closed by the officials until further notice. So my performance was moved to one of the more mainstream night clubs, the “China Doll”:
and yes. the city is biiig. everything soooo biiiiiiig.
parts of the city make you forget where you are. Who can find the apple in the picture?
whenever something is not big enough or suitable anymore, entire neighborhoods get demolished and rebuild in larger scales over night, so i was told. The city bursts with construction sites.
just some street crossing:
the mainstream club area, some of them have pretty impressive facades.
“the village”, an area with all the western designer stores, galleries and coffee shops, at night:
by day:
a cute little apartment building, Beijing style:
the embassy area, right next to my hotel, with many people in uniforms in uncomfortable positions.
Grab your free copy of the Intro Magazine 170 (April 2009) somewhere around your city (if you live in Germany) or download the article as pdf’s here:
article on c.sides / Intro 170, page 42
article on c.sides / Intro 170, page 43
Really nice article saying a lot of really nice things about us and our really nice project…
Finally! We were waiting for some more images to come in, and so it took us way way too long to get these online. What a beautiful festival we had!! We have one album per day, to make navigation a bit easier.
Day 1 / 11th of February 2009: Panels and Presentations at Levontin 7
http://www.csides.net/Images_2009/11Feb09-panels_at_levontin7
Day 2 / 12th of February 2009: The first day at the Caliph in Jaffo
http://www.csides.net/Images_2009/12Feb09-Caliph
Day 3 / 13th of February 2009: The second day at the Caliph in Jaffo
http://www.csides.net/Images_2009/13Feb09-Caliph
Day 4 / Afterparty at the Barzilay Club
http://www.csides.net/Images_2009/14Feb09-afterparty_barzilay_club
