Unscene Berlin

Why is Berlin being so meeeean ? Berlin can be so mean. Many of its long-term inhabitants will already know about the Berliner Schnauze . Most visitors will have encountered it, too. Most of us choose not to let it bother us... until it catches us off-guard, in the shape of some car driver spraying us with a stream of water on a drizzly day. In Berlin, you tend to run into people who've got their schnauze on at the worst of all possible times.  Like when some old fogey sticks their foot out to trip you up as you're hurrying to catch the train to get to an appointment on time.  Or when the travel agent starts cackling sourly after you desperately ask her to book a hotel for you in Köln on Rosenmontag (and then shouts at you a bit). Or when the guy at the tax office deliberately gives you the wrong forms to fill in, and then yells at you for not using the right forms after a week spent filling them out.  High-tech 'Fuck You' from an exhibit of robotic art. O

What ever happened to the drama in our lives? In the quest to become the individual directors of its content, we've given up our roles as its muses.  More time spent photographing, producing and presenting ourselves online has equaled less time spent in front of the lens or in search of fresh material. So it's great to see that the unashamed theatrics of simply being can still be found in a medium where all but self-expression have been removed. In zine-land, there's no chance to edit, second-guess or overproduce the content we come up with.  This is where the zine gets its addictive, artistic appeal from. "How to Become a Sea Creature in a Call Center" & other zines... Zine culture as we know it had its countercultural boom in the 1970s & 1980s punk scene, with label-band Crass leading the charge.  In the 1990s, the zine diversified, with grrrl bands like Suckdog and ravers mingling with the hardcore punk zine crowd. The zine even surviv