STUDIO #4 : Singing Society

The over-sized Church from the last century – plus a secular choir from all over Berlin

• How to communicate Death for 500 years to come

• Thinking–Decolonizing

• Doing Anti-Dystopian

The place has history: This church is a relic of Prussian Berlin: In the middle of the former workers› district, which today has become one of the city’s most expensive housing areas due to globally financed start ups and hipsters flowing in from all over the world. The former migrant workers are today’s old berliners, sharing the streets and parks with tourists and newcomers from the global south.

Building this church was a political statement at the end of the 19th century: After the Socialists had gained strong outcomes in the votes in this proletarian working class milieu, the authorities, loyal to the emperor, and the state church together built a bulwark in the middle of the red district.

The church nave held 2500 worshippers and at the opening in 1893 the royal cathedral choir sang while the emperor came by with his wife. Imagining himself as the ruler of a colonial empire that was to perish in the following two world wars.

After the 2nd world war, the church was rebuilt from the ruins, only reduced in size – today, elderly volunteers run a small «one world store» in the foyer, the emptiness of the religious services is countered with jazz concerts, and Berliners from all districts meet here for choir rehearsals: 

The perfect place to think about messages that should last hundreds of years. About epistemological disobedience to Europe’s colonial project. And how society and politics receive anti-dystopian inspiration from good sci-fi.

Accompanied by the «Electronic Orchestra Charlottenburg» the choir records its own GOLDEN RECORD on this evening, shortly before advent in the second year of the worldwide pandemic.

Inputs by:

Detlev Möller : Leader of „Long-Term Documentation“ at the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection

Judith Albrecht : Visual & Media Anthropology, research in Tanzania, Iran, Libya, Germany, and the United States

Isabella Herrmann : Political Scientist, Author & Curator in Sci-Fi; Co-Director of Berlin’s Sci-fi Filmfestival

EOC – Elektronisches Orchester Charlottenburg : Electroacoustic Music, interaction of diverse electronic instruments & their spatialization in real time. Founded at the Electronic Music Studio at Technical University of Berlin.