Electronic Beats Spring 2014 [antikvár]

"Following a period of relatíve ealm" Max Dax: In a rím up to this years World Cup, we flew to Rio de Janeiro to speak with the city s various cultural protagonists for this issue s city report. We were alsó in Rios various favelas. which, following a period of relative calm. have now once again become the i'ocal point of both political violence and cultural development. Things there are changing. Hans Ulrich Obrist: Klaus Biesenbach, Simon Castets. Lniz Camillo Osorio and myself are organizing the 89plus panel for t he Expol in Rio. The global project deals with concepts and ideas of the generation born after 1989-a generation that distinguishes itself by being the first to grow up with the Internet. Of course, this will include aspects of ecology and shortage of' resources. We will alsó be discussing the ideas of economist Hans Christoph Binswanger. president of World Wildlife Fund For Nature International, who is an advocate for sustainability and reminds us that that various markets need to adapt to the needs of the people, not vice versa. MD: The legendary Brazilian singer Gaetano Veloso expresses a similar sentiment in this issue when he says that Brazil Dear Readers, While most of you probably know the feeling of getting losl in hypnotic music witliin a club setting, there's a loug and íascinating world history to entering trance-like states througli the rítual of dance. In this issue we found out how the Calabrían ÍVIaíia estabiishes order through their codiíied forni of evtremely entrancing tarantella, ne alsó traveled to Philadelphia, where iVIarshall Allén of the Sun Ra Arkestra invited us to the group's commune to discuss space, music and the ftiture. In Rio de Janeiro we leamed about what makes South America's latest economy culturally tick and politically go boom. All this and morc, in a hundred pages of straight dope. And I do mean dope. Sincerely, IVIax I)a\ now has the incredible opportunitv to redefine success in a way that doesn't have to be strictly based on notions of growth and an economic boom. HUO: Which is alsó especially relevant for today's new generation. MD: It s interesting that in our interview with Paulo Cézár, a prominent member of Brazil's 1970 World Cup champion team. was the most critical of Brazil's current state of affairs, while Felipe Altenfelder, a digital native, emphasized that he is not against the government and only seeks to point out obvious areas of social and political improvemerit. Altenfelder is one of the founders of Mídia Ninja, whose network of bloggers broadi casted the riots in Brazil via live j stream and provided fascinating, unedited accounts of the events. They managed to become | extremely powerful in Brazil through the sÉfnplest of means. j HUO: For me, Rio has always been strongly connected to the Tropicália movernent, of which Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé, and Gaetano Veloso were key figures. This was one of the ra re rnoments in the history of modernism in which something enlirely new was born out of maiiy different disc.iplines. It was j a inagical time and something comparable seems to be happening today within the dynamics of Rio's youth. It's simply an : incredible place. and I always associated the city center with | Oscar Niemeyer and his atelier I 011 Avenida Atlántica. \\ henever 1 went to Rio. 1 always drove directlv to his place on the Copacabana. Those were always fantastic visits. He worked there until the end of his life. MD: It's through such interactions that you find yourself thrust into a new environment. learn ing ro explore it through the eves and ears of the people you meet. In a sense. we experience cities unpredictably and through chance. HUO: For me. cities are always connected with people. That is, I essentially travel to v isit people, and they live in cities. With them I see the environment as if I ve entered through a back door. Oskar Kokoschka once said that it's impossible to paint a portrait of a city, because as soon as he was finished. the city had changed. Vnd he painted many, many cities. That's something that 1 always have to emphasize when discussing úrban carlography: It's always about the simultaneous possibility and impossibility of a synthetic image of a given city. ~ EB 1/2014