Have you ever wondered what happens after the heavy doors of a club close? Where all these people dancing wild go when the sun whips the sky with its ruthless rays – if, of course, they don’t end up eating a currywurst while you sweep a drip of sauce off the tip of their lips or, even better, sleeping in bed next to you? Pindar Andriopoulos is now offering you an insight into this bleary world.
Being one of the first Greek VJs, the last seven and a half years he’s resided in Berlin, where he got involved with the DJ duo Discodromo, aka Giacomo Garavelloni and Giovanni Turco. Together they started the –now legendary– Cocktail d’Amore parties, which define Berlin’s alternative scene and put nights in Neukölln on fire. He’s responsible for the visual aesthetics of Cocktail d’Amore (Discodromo also run a label under the same name), a privilege that he earned for being part of the “family” – because the bonds between Cocktail d’ Amore participants are something beyond friendship or love.
“I would prefer the photos to tell a story themselves, to let the viewer interpret them in their own way. These photos are possible because I started the Cocktail d'Amore parties almost seven years ago with Discodromo, and from a very early stage, people got used to seeing me having my camera and taking pictures – a very special privilege, because photos are banned in most clubs.’’
But in this feature you won’t get to see any snapshots from the raving successful parties. You will get to see what happens right after, and how the people being part of it interact with one another in a special “shelter” that sometimes happens to be Pindar’s apartment. “Since my place is quite big and in a central part of the city, I’ve had numerous after parties, and some of the photos capture the intimacy that gets developed between the friends being there together for days long. The photos are more of an ongoing project of my own experiences and feelings than a documentation of a scene, they are much more subjective than objective, but can be viewed in multiple ways, so I don't want to limit their scope.”
Pindar’s work it is not a documentation of Berlin’s LGTBQ community or alternative scene. Instead, they are fragments, reflections of one of the many sides of the city, one of the many sides of the human condition, above gender, race or… whatever!
“I would prefer the photos to tell a story themselves, to let the viewer interpret them in their own way. These photos are possible because I started the Cocktail d'Amore parties almost seven years ago with Discodromo, and from a very early stage, people got used to seeing me having my camera and taking pictures – a very special privilege, because photos are banned in most clubs.’’
But in this feature you won’t get to see any snapshots from the raving successful parties. You will get to see what happens right after, and how the people being part of it interact with one another in a special “shelter” that sometimes happens to be Pindar’s apartment. “Since my place is quite big and in a central part of the city, I’ve had numerous after parties, and some of the photos capture the intimacy that gets developed between the friends being there together for days long. The photos are more of an ongoing project of my own experiences and feelings than a documentation of a scene, they are much more subjective than objective, but can be viewed in multiple ways, so I don't want to limit their scope.”
Pindar’s work it is not a documentation of Berlin’s LGTBQ community or alternative scene. Instead, they are fragments, reflections of one of the many sides of the city, one of the many sides of the human condition, above gender, race or… whatever!
