During my time here in Berlin, I’ve played my fair share of ping pong (Tischtennis). Four ping pong-related events are worth mentioning here.
1) Many parks, large and small, come with sturdy outdoor tables and on any sunny, warm day, you’ll notice groups of people playing for hours on end. Usually accompanied by some beer. When I first saw this, I was struck by it for two reasons: first, that people would play ping pong outdoors (not easy on windy days) and have the requisite equipment (racquets, balls) readily at hand; second, the manner of group play, whereby anywhere from four to twenty people will gather around the table and play elimination rounds (that is, when a player fouls, they’re eliminated and this carries on with the circle getting smaller and smaller until the round is reduced to a final two, who then play a best of five game). The latter point is probably peculiar to most North Americans because you’ll never have more than four players at any one time, playing in a basement, on a table which typically bowed in the centre. The tables in the parks here are solid metal and/or concrete and seem designed to withstand pretty much any kind of abuse (which from what I can tell is just about anything, including the May Day riots).
2) On one of my very first visits here, I discovered something that you can only really call “guerilla ping pong.” This was a kind of situationist-inspired game play, where, through a listserv, participants would be notified of a location (it usually took place on a set night of the week), usually in an outdoor place with good ambient light (in front of a storefront, window display, etc.). A group would gather over the course of the evening and the night would end when people got tired, ran out of beer, or were chased away by the police or neighbours. It seemed to me to be yet another one of those playful interventions into public space that are not so uncommon here.
3) Since I arrived here, I’ve been keeping my eye on the evolution of one particular ping pong club, Dr. Pong, on Eberswalder Str., in Prenzlauerberg. (Turns out it it’s yet another place on my usual itinerary run by an ex-pat American/Australian/Canadian/Brit type - see White Trash, 8mm Bar, etc.) My first encounter with the club came simply by wandering past while waiting for a late-night tram. It stood out because the windows of the place were covered with a translucent paper which gave it a strange glow, with dozens of bikes were strewn about the front sidewalk, and this on a normally desolate stretch of Eberswalder. Backlit, all I could see were the silhouettes of the players, projected larger than life. I didn’t go in that night, but a week later I did. It was a building under renovation and they had claimed the space for ping pong nights. It was very makeshift at that point, with a tiny bar, a few couches, the air thick with the smell of hash and cigarettes, and a DJ playing indierock or some appalling pop. The players were all-ages, as there were clearly 30 and 40-somethings there (though the minority by far). Once again, people brought their own racquets. Most were simply stopping by before heading out for some other club. Rarely would people spend their entire evening there, though some did simply by virtue of being too pissed to move.
Dr. Pong has since evolved into something that looks a bit more established, the rice-papered windows now adorned with a large black and white photo of a game in progress. The bar is looking a bit flashier, too. The DJing is still as rough as before, which is one way of masking the fact that this place was consciously architect-designed.
4) There was one other ping pong moment which makes this a complete set. It takes on the character of something a bit more esoteric, but one thing I’ve been personally involved with. One of the people I’ve become friendly with here in Berlin, Remco, has, together with his friend Bijan, assembled out of their love of country music and ping pong, something called rather poetically, Pingpong Country. It’s an event that happens every couple of months, mainly in Berlin, but increasingly outside of the city, and even internationally (in September, they made a trip to Montreal; in April, it’s Nantes). On a night when Remco couldn’t play, I was asked to fill in. Easily one of my highlights here in Berlin (proudly resplendent in my Lionel Trains t-shirt). A good country groove was found and we played until 7 AM (about 8 hours of manning one of two turntables).
The country boys have recently been conscripted into designing tables, t-shirts, racquets and ping pong paraphenalia for a ping pong company, so what started as a lark has evolved into something a tiny bit more lucrative. But only a tiny bit.
So four standout ping pong moments in Berlin for me. What can be said?
Socially: I was told by one player that the reason the game took the shape it did in Germany was a simple democratic principle: elimination rounds are the best way to ensure that everyone gets at least one turn at bat, so to speak. It’s also a great opportunity to speak to strangers. As you each wait your turn at the table, it’s a perfect social lubricant. It’s good-natured and fun, which is also key and exemplifies the tone of much of Berlin cultural life. Any sense of competition is muted by a more general inclusiveness and it often takes a few minutes for the next round to start as people get caught up the pure sociality of it all.
Spatially: Out of the rubble of Berlin, and inside its ever-dwindling derelict buildings, people like these have helped to render the city meaningful in their own unique ways, creating enclaves out of dis/un-used space, wilfully fashioning spaces that make the city matter via social encounters facilitated through sites like this. Voiding the voids of Berlin, they’re rewriting the city-text with their own signature flourishes.
I’m not trying to overstate the case here, as there are plenty examples which support the metaphor. Andreas Huyssen takes the voids of Berlin as the centerpiece of his Present Pasts. And Daniel Libeskind designed the Jewish Museum consciously as a void which could speak physically and psychically to the persistent presence of absence in Berlin. But then one can hardly avoid the voids here, symbolic or real. It’s become a commonplace, almost throwaway, statistic that over 60-70 percent of the city was destroyed both during and after the war. Since reunification much has been done to try to fill the voids, the bulk (and bulk is a propos) of which is corporate, commercial architecture (Potsdamerplatz or Friedrichstrasse), and fancy boutiques (Mitte). The instrumental functionality of the city is what dominates in these instances. But, never fear, there is that utopic, aesthetic, creative, impulse, the one you all know about:
The void on the one hand can be considered as introverted desolation, an existential and sociological appearance of loss. On the other hand, the concept of void can also be interpreted positively: vacant primarily means empty, but also free and therefore full of opportunity. –(Kenny Cupers/ Markus Miessen, Spaces of Uncertainty, 2002)
Voids are an inescapable part of Berlin’s urban landscape and the desire among planners has been to fill them in a manner overwhelmingly geared towards obscuring what was there before, instituting a regime, and accompanying built spaces, of hyper-consumption and anonymous, flat, homogeneity. But as we know, regimes of this kind can never been total; there are plenty of weaknesses, gaps, and lacunae that are hard to police or are policed rather ineffectively. In the past, it was squats and communal living which provided the impetus for what would become Berlin club culture. That was more than a decade ago, really, so the tone has shifted, of course. As I noted about semi-legal bars below, the fantasy of total control has evolved into something where tolerance and diversity (let’s call it plurality, to be more precise) becomes the new hegemony, whereby clubs and bars fall under the aegis of a new regime of urban/global consumption. They’ve become part of what sells Berlin now, club culture a shorthand for a revitalized, inviting, open (for business) city. So, Ping Pong Country matures into something semi-official, commerically sanctioned, anthologized also as part of Berlin Style (complete with photospread). So too Dr. Pong, which in its own way, steps into the void, asserting its presence nowadays in tour guides and “suggested Berlin hotspots” (on the Easy Jet website, for example), playing its role in the commodification and packaging of Berlin’s new urban “drama”:
The exposed layers of history in Berlin’s urban environment contributed to a dramatic quality: a city of constant fragmentation is offering a continuous stage for reinvention. This quality could also be understood as its historic tragedy: a permanent process of longing for ideologically-driven action has left Berlin in a state of loose fabric that allows the co-existence of differing urban models and signatures. Restlessness is Berlin’s immediate identity. –ibid
Restlessness is indeed a kind of sensibility embraced by those making music and art here. Instability, as became clear to me in Montreal, is valorized as what keeps things together, ironically. Reading of Richard Florida’s recent proclamations about Montreal, and what makes it “work” as a creative city, got me thinking about how the notion of restlessness has become part of the marketing of Berlin. Restlessness has been conflated with creative energy in Berlin. Of course, they’re not the same thing and can even work at cross-purposes (some people I’ve talked to use the word “exhausted,” where they’re referring to both their physical state, but also the state of things cultural). The ad-hoc and temporary nature of things in Berlin can wear you down at the same time that it creates opportunities. As one person suggested to me: “Things are never ideal here in Berlin. Never perfect.” But perfection in their art is not what they’re striving for; more a kind of low-level lifestyle perfection, creating a social space in which they can flourish as exemplary individuals and collectives.
What one can read in ping pong, in the clubs, in bars, in clothing shops, is a kind of social experiment, where Berlin is a laboratory which tolerates, breeds and nourishes certain social and cultural practices, and where trial and error become a way of life.
To musical ping pong, or just pong, then. From Holland, Legowelt is part of the dark electro revival that various Dutch bands have been spearheading for the last few years (see Murder Capital Records, or Bunker Records, for examples). This is Legowelt from a Pong tribute CD. This one stands out more than the others from what my ears can tell me. As with most of the songs I choose, I can’t always promise I’ll be on track thematically, but I’m doing my best with what I’ve got at hand. See above.
Iso G.
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Geoff Stahl
