BER/DE

Berlin - towards the Fernsehturm from the Bornholmer Bridge - 29 Jan 2026

I’m so despondent about what is happening in Australia. The political climate, if you could call it that. It feels worse to me than at any other time I can recall. I was driving home from Sydney the evening of the Bondi shootings, shocked, of course. But within mere minutes, my thoughts ran like this - people are going to make a lot of politcial capitol out of this, for many wrong reasons, and it’s gonna go on and on and on. And I couldn’t believe how ridiculous it became and just how quickly. I’m ashamed of our juveline political discourse. I can’t get along with it. I feel like leaving it behind… but to whom? I’m arguing with people I’ve known and respected for decades. I feel like avoiding them and their situations. I’m a very lucky person, born into even greater luck, yet I feel ashamed of so much of what’s grown up around me. Donald Horne wasn’t kidding when he coined that oft hackneyed title, The Lucky Country. What are you supposed to do? Music and art. Nobody is going to ruin that, even if it only exists in my head. >>>> The last time I visited Germany I came away certain that artistic pursuit was the reason I was alive. It’s a lot more than an urge, more like a continual state of mental flux. And that’s the way it is with situations fresh or unfamilar, you get fed and nurtured in straightforward and seemingly unconnected ways. To escape a routine hot summer and arrive in Berlin’s coldest winter in four decades was quite an experience. The effect of the minimal grey light flattens every colour, almost to monochrome, almost another planet, distant from the continual glare and burn back home. This has created plently of fodder for my new toy/camera, which is either a cork-sniffer happy-snapper or a low-rent Leica. All the main variables are possible: zoom, colour temperature, ISO, aperture, shutter speed - just like old times with a Pentax K1000. But the impetus to frame something up and hit the shutter has been endless; the snow, the fog, walking between and on top of petrified waves, rivers, seas and canals, not to mention treacherous black-iced footpaths. The low light at the end of a short day sends the captures into the “blue zone”. I’ve been forced to learn the device, or else the images, the colour, or lack thereof, ends up alien and strange. Which, of course, can be exactly right, too.

A renovated portion of Prora, Rügen Insel, Germany - 20 Feb 2026

One highlight has been the vast, Nazi commissioned, holiday apartment complex on Rügen Island part of the Baltic coastline. The Colossus of Prora. It ticks all the boxes for pre-WW2 idealism and architectural brutalism. It was half complete at the outbreak of the war and it was assumed the project would continue once the 1000 year reich was established. However, it fell to the Russians and the GDR. It teems with ghostly spectre and cold war wonder. “Strength through Joy” was the credo assigned to this place, the idea that health and vitality we’re a conduit to power. Now, part renovated, part crumbing, Prora reflects modern German history. There’s four and a half km of it in a broad arc, following the bay. A tour of the basement of a once-upon-a-time disco revealed signs of the GDR’s nefarious actions up until their collapse. A gloomy, stark, frightening place. >>>> Berlin once had three Flaktürmen, massive concrete anit-aircfraft gun towers that also served as bunkers. The one remaining is a public space that rises high above the surrounding neighbourhood. All types congregate there; kids, ferals, joggers, couples, dogs, but when I first went there the day I arrived, barely a local was to be seen on the stark, frigid, black-iced structures. Taking photos, the frostbite started to set in, but it was mesmerising and I felt so far from home.

Flakturm Humbolthain, Berlin - 29 Jan 2026

The gloom inspires. Seems fresh. But another thing, a fantastic thing, was attending live music performances as part of a respectful, interested and largely nuanced audience. I caught a range of events; low-key duo/band spots, an acoustic Americana quartet, a freeform jazz orchestra, a touring USA indie/alt rock act, a 4D surround soundbath and on to the full Berlin Philharmonic playing Berlioz, maybe the greatest orchestra in the world. Being part of those audiences was a affirmation to me that some cultures do care about art and take it quite seriously. This isn’t to say back home music and art isn’t treasured, but the percentage of those doing the coveting is way smaller. It makes us work harder (there’s an upside), but why can’t people just shut up and listen? When surrounded by kindred spirits, is it fair if the experience ends up cheapened? And I cannot communicate with mere words how the Philharmonic reached into me. >>>> In another country, where your mother-tongue isn’t the first thing on everybody else’s lips, you can end up in a certain quiet. The static dies away. The emotional crosstalk that comes with advertising, with news grabs, with communters speaking loud enough on a train, their phone calls, announcements and other forms of disquiet - there’s a lesser impact. You only understand a fraction of it. At the same time, you wonder and dream on the new sights, sounds, words and smells, and then you remember, that you are indeed far away from home. The sun has been out for the last few days and it swings in a low arc, but from the SE to SW. Far from home. Everything I have outside my immediate self is 17,000 km away and 10 hours into the future, but I barely consider it. A couple of days ago the Middle East lit up all over again, airspaces were closed and prevented me from leaving as planned, but I almost didn’t care. Getting lost in something seems reasonable - unsustainable if you consider your significant others, but reasonable all the same.

Wild Country