life's pictures without ending...: 04/01/2008

Void History. Gathering of The Tribes 2008

Gathering of The Tribes 2008/22,23,24 March/Frankfurt

It was a great adventure.... Four of us traveled in Frankfurt as participation of Void Network and Global Eye (London Void Network) to the Gathering of the Tribes festival. The weather was very cold, snow was falling almost all weekend but we was full of enthusiasm cause we met each other "on stage" again, continue traveling after Hamburg, continue the dream of revolutionary nomadic life. In Saturday, during the first day of the festival D.J. Crystal Zero and Sissy Stardust opened the chill out area with a 3 hours space ambient psychedelic set from 7 to 11 , they played their official mind exploding programme from 3 to 6 in the night and in the meantime from 2 until 10 o clock in the morning Global Eye and Void Optical Art Laboratory was playing Void Art show in the main stage giving to everybody the opportunity to share some great visuals, some inspirational visions, some influential thoughts...The people loved it! The festival was taking place in a block with 4 different stages and it was an interesting experience to see all people flow from stage to stage for almost three days...

Dance Culture and Politics Conference

During Sunday afternoon (in the programmed hour of our workshop) we had the great chance to organize with The Hedonist International and Alice-Project as also with many other people a spontaneous demonstration for Free Tibet from the festival to the Chinese Consultant Office...It was a dream...The Hedonists was making a workshop about mobile sound systems and suddenly our workshop became a demonstration! we was so happy as we had in plan to make some action for Tibet in Athens or in London and we found to do this in Frankfurt! About 100 people demonstrated shouting Free Tibet!Free Tibet in the streets of Frankfurt and dancing to the sounds of the mobile sound systems...We stayed in front of the Chinese Consultant Office for about an hour (the Chinese officers was looking curious from inside the building hided behind the courtins).
The demo after passed inside the central train station (it was a crazy reclaim the station for 15'...then the police started to pushing outside the crazymotherfuckers)according to the German style more than 11 police vans came for a demo of 100 people).

Void Optical Art Laboratory and Global Eye Show

We went back followed by all this hundreds riot policemen and we continued the show with a 2 hours psychedelic ambient set from Sissy Stardust and Crystal Zero as also we played all night long visual projection in some great concerts as electro-kraut psychedelic rock goddess Lava 303, the sexyacidpsychos The Blotch, the balkandrunkenpartydjs of Volxtanzkomitee and the space odyssey of Pattys Planet.
We have to aggree that we had a great time with all this 1300 tribesmen and tribesladies
from outer space and we hope we will play again in this festival...We played all weekend in many different stages projections and music and this was great for us cause we experimented with the possibility of our collective playing in many different stages at the same time in a big international festival.

Gathering of the Tribes 2008

(We have to specialy thanks for their help Konni, Eyke, Jens, Wolfgang Sterneck and this beautiful woman that drived us out from the festival and we was so fuckingdrunk we can not remember her name now...sorry...We have to thank also all the nice people from the community house that accommodated us outside from Frankfurt and offered us the only calm moments of all this weekend...Thank you!)

Void Network presents. Total Freedom Global Festival

Total Freedom Global Festival

The 3 days TOTAL FREEDOM GLOBAL FESTIVAL for the underground cultures that took place in the squatted cultural and political social center Rote Flora in Hamburg / Germany during 29 Feb/ 1 Mar./ 2 Mar. 2008 maybe it was one of the best things Void Network did the last year. Not only cause more than 2000 people came to this 3 days celebration of all underground cultures in Rote Flora but mostly cause it was a great opportunity for us to work with the people of Rote Flora as also with the other collectives that participated to the festival (Global Eye, ArtCore, Celtic Heritage, CrimeThink, Vat_Om Lab, Funxion collective).

It seems that this will be the way that Void Network will follow in the future : bringing together cultural activists, political and artistic groups, the finest underground lecturers, visual artists, d.j.s and musicians and manifesting with all of them cross-platform collaborations in the form of many days Temporary Autonomous Ecstatic Public Zones.

Void Art visuals by Sissy Stardust
(Void Optical Arts Lab.)

It seems that our need for co-creativity starts to expand to a big number of people and groups that want to share the show room, the many different stages as also to have active collaborative contact with us...
Slowly slowly in all Europe appearing a new wave of deep, real friendship between our collectives, groups, creative people, companies of friends, social centers e.t.c. that want to travel together, to make plans, that they have common visions...common understandings...and common practices. It appears a personal face to face and heart to heart trust and the strong need to live, work and fight together for social liberation, cultural revolution, transformation of the mentality, expanding of one into the other, stronger solidarity and open sharing of sources, materials, ideas, visions, plans and solutions. We want to create together the conditions of social life that will give to us and to everybody the opportunity to escape from the blackmail of employment as also to create educational and artistic spaces that will give to us and to everybody the opportunity to escape from the blackmail of the culture-factory (clubs, bars, concert halls, galleries, restaurants, internet cafes, cinemas e.t.c.).

Mat Mushroom in Space!

We will take our life back from capitalistic market step by step, activity to activity, need to need, wish to wish...This was the understandings of the Open Public Dialogue : "Talking About Total Freedom" that took place in the afternoon of the festival's second day between all the activists and the organizing collectives of the festival.

Total Freedom Global Festival (d.j Dura on stage)

As about the festival itself , it expanded in 3 different stages that tried to include all different styles of contemporary sound so as to break the barriers between the different music styles and the variety of urban street-fashions to blend all people in a massive wave of all-inclusive ecstatic celebration of the underground resistance. And the people took this message and make it a celebrating explosion. It was really great! This is the conclusion of Total Freedom Global Festival of Hamburg and this is the plan of the future : all-inclusive open conditions of ecstatic co-existence. See you on the barricades of our everyday life co-existence! (We have to thank all cultural activists of Rote Flora, DubCafe and ArtCore for the great help and the inspirational deco., all groups, international and local artists that made the squatted building pumping from the basement to the sky, all visual artists that offered to us visions and thoughts, all people they helped in the entrance, the kitchen, the constructions, the technical equipments, the bar, the cleaning...all this

DJ Dura + Void Optical Art Laboratory

wonderful people. But also... We have to thank mostly...all this 2000 (or maybe more?) wonderful people from Hamburg that gave their spirit and energy to the festival, all the ravers, the crazy neo-hippies, the anarchist antifas, the drunk punks, the electro robots and the hardcore techno-freaks, the psychedelic trancers, the drum 'n bass manicdancers, the beautifull and the ugly girls and boys, the peculiar dubstep schizophrenics and the chillout area lovers, the enthusiastic paranoids and the melancholic romantics... all this beautiful people of Hamburg that made all this experience happen...Thank You!)

Frankfurt am Main, Hessen (Germany)

Situated on the River Main, Frankfurt is the financial and transportation centre of Germany and one of the two largest financial centres in continental Europe, the other being Paris. It is the place of residence of the European Central Bank, the German Federal Bank, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Trade Fair. Frankfurt International Airport is one of the world's busiest airports, Frankfurt Central Station is one of the largest terminal stations in Europe and the Frankfurter Kreuz (Autobahn interchange) is the most heavily used interchange in Europe. Frankfurt is the only German city listed as one of ten Alpha world cities.
The three pillars of Frankfurt's economy are finance, transport, and trade fairs. Frankfurt has been Germany's financial centre for centuries, and it is the home of a number of major banks and brokerages. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is by far Germany's largest, and is one of the world's most important. Frankfurt is also the seat of the European Central Bank which sets monetary policy for the Eurozone economy, and of the German Federal Bank. Over 300 national and international banks are represented here, including the headquarters of the major German banks.

Frankfurt has an excellent transportation infrastructure and the Frankfurt International Airport is a major European aviation hub. Its central location at the heart of Europe and its excellent accessibility by air, rail and road make Frankfurt Airport City especially attractive. In addition, many large trade fairs are held in Frankfurt each year, notably the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung, the world's largest motor show, and the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the world's largest book fair.

Frankfurt is also home to many cultural and educational institutions including the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, many museums and a large botanical garden, the Palmengarten. Frankfurt's second major university, Business School of Finance and Management, focuses on finance.

Frankfurt am Main, Hessen (Germany)

Frankfurt is one of only four European cities that have a significant number of high-rise skyscrapers. With ten skyscrapers taller than 150 m (492 ft) in 2004, Frankfurt is second behind Paris with twelve skyscrapers, but ahead of London with eight skyscrapers and Moscow with seven skyscrapers. The city of Frankfurt contains the two tallest skyscrapers in the European Union, the Commerzbank Tower and Messeturm, which rank second and third on the continent after the Triumph-Palace in Moscow.