Article by Martha Lochhead // Oct. 18, 2019
DICE Conference + Festival is an annual three-day event that will take place this year in Berlin from October 31st to November 2nd. Through a diverse range of mediums, including live performances, installations, workshops, panels, lectures and a club programme, the event showcases interdisciplinary artists with an aim to create an alternative model for music spaces.
This year’s theme and title ‘Overtime’ is a critique of how the boundary between work and leisure is blurred. Work has seeped into our private lives, our free time and even our identities and sense of self. The result? An illusion of endless productivity; work as passion; and worker as the agent of their own exploitation. DICE Conference + Festival explores this contemporary work ideology and strategies for stepping outside of it.
Gianni Mae // Photo credits Zombienanny
The festival lineup includes Berlin-based techno queen Lady Blacktronika; pioneering Istanbul DJ Q-Bra; Dutch bass veteran DJ Marcelle’ Jersey-based hardcore rapper RahRah Gabor; Cairo-based avant-garde singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Nadah El Shazly (performing with her full band); eclectic and soulful vocalist and DJ Stella Zekri; J-pop mutator Golin; genre-hopping artist and DJ The Neighbourhood Character; and the Queens-bred raunchy hip-hop fashionista Dai Burger to name a few.
A Halloween party will be hosted at Bi Nuu with performances by Swedish singer Tami T, UK club staple Shygirl, Berlin hip-hop artist Gianni Mae and dance music experimenter 6zm, followed by a DJ set from the multi-disciplinary artist and producer Black Cracker. The event is a celebration of the local community and of the individuals and groups who sustain Berlin’s radical artistic character. It is free of charge with an RSVP.
What can be expected from the festival and conference? Workshops with titles such as ‘Long-term vs. Short-term survival,’ ‘Negotiating your worth,’ ‘Manifesto-writing,’ ‘Feminist Meme School,’ and panels and discussion groups on topics like ‘Feminist Explorations of Time and Care under Capitalism,’ ‘Race, Gender, and Identity as Currency,’ and ‘Migration and Drag Culture.’
The opening night Artist Spotlight talk will be given by performance artist, author, DJ and co-founder of the New York-based trans-inclusive party series SHOCK VALUE, Juliana Huxtable. Speaking candidly about her experiences in both the music and art worlds, she will trace her artistic development and discuss her bold, cross-disciplinary artistic output. Huxtable has been garnered as one of the most versatile and dynamic new artistic voices for her use of diverse media. In her poetry, performance and essays she reframes herself within identity and history. By moving between the spaces of galleries, communities and nightclubs she creates new artistic playgrounds for herself and her collaborators.
Another notable event, and example of what can be expected from DICE, is the multidisciplinary performance ‘Collective Amnesia: In Memory of Logobi’ by Paris-based performer, producer, writer and DJ Crystallmess. The performance will combine DJing, video and 3D elements in an active process of collectively forgetting, decontextualizing and burying facts. ‘Collective Amnesia’ aims to explore the intersection between post-colonial alienation, technology, DIY culture and the postmodern approach of ethnomusicology. The woman behind Crystallmess is Christelle Oyiri. Her multidisciplinary practice covers subjects of digital culture, experimental futurisms, representation and the black diaspora.
Julianna Huxtable for The New York Times // Photo credit Nathan Bajar
Exhibition Info
DICE BERLIN
DICE 2019: ‘OVERTIME’
Conference and Festival: Oct. 31 – Nov. 02, 2019
Taborkirche, Taborstraße 17, 10997 Berlin, click here for map
Bi Nuu, U-Bahnhof Schlesisches Tor, 10997 Berlin, click here for map
