30 March 2011

Chilled Prosecus on Zehndenicker Straße

By

Activism ∕ Event ∕ Public Space ∕ Speculation

The hoax of a Hoffest that was supposed to take place on Sunday was such a non-event that I felt commensurately uninspired to report upon it until now. I wasn’t sure at all if some autonomous anarchos would really be there to rally an angry throng of protesters or not, and on the other hand my hopes for some free sparkling wine were slight. It was a clear afternoon and the streets were typically vacant for a Sunday in Berlin, quiet in a way that I’ve come to cherish while living here for the last 10 years or so. At the front gate to the Choriner Höfe lifestyle community/hardhat zone the sound of a brisk wind rushing through the scaffolding overpowered the insect-like chirping of the season’s first sparrows.

No prosecco but plenty of Prosecus with which to toast the spring.

There were no anarchos and no champagne and no prosecco, just the Prosecus security company, and not much else. Their presence was announced by a printed tarpaulin that had been hastily zap strapped to the construction site’s fencing.

The gated community, Berlin style.  The perennial existential question being, is the fencing meant to keep us out, or them in?

Within the now infamous courtyard a portly employee of that company leered at me from a distance as I appeared at the front entrance, then slowly started to walk in my direction. Between him and me there stood only some more fencing, newly added to block the uninhibited access that I’d enjoyed during my covert, drunken operation a few weeks before. A couple of schicky micky (shitty mitty?) residents then fortunately stepped into the scene, preventing the kind of confrontation that I dread.