09.11.2020 – 14:40
3sat
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MainzMainz (ots)
Saturday, November 14, 2020, 10:45 p.m.
First broadcast
The discos and clubs of the 1960s and 1970s were total works of art. They were places of intense, multimedia experiences that also had an impact on the political arena. As places of delimitation and removal of taboos, they made a decisive contribution to the emancipation of minorities such as homosexuals and blacks. The 3satKulturdoku “Radical Disco – The early years of the clubs” by Susanne Müller and Andreas Coerper tells on Saturday, November 14, 2020 at 10:45 p.m. premiered on the brief heyday of early nightclubs and discos in Germany, New York, Italy and Spain. The documentary sheds light on the time before the rapid commercialization of disco music forced the experimental clubs to give up.
Society in the 1960s and 1970s was in a state of upheaval: the youth revolted, broke with old ideas – whether it was about sex, drugs or politics. She wanted to get out of the corset of social norms and dogmas. The newly created nightclubs and discos were her experimental fields. Night owls gathered under the light organs of futuristic dance clubs to dream of unrestricted freedom in rooms made of sound, light, Plexiglas and plush. The French philosopher Michel Foucault called such actually realized utopias in the midst of society heterotopias. Renowned artists, architects and designers took part in the creation of these total works of art.
The group ZERO around Günther Uecker, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, for example, turned the Düsseldorf club Creamcheese into a permanent happening. ZERO had been experimenting with the medium of light since the early 1960s. The artists of the group wanted to shake society out of its deep slumber with stroboscopes and sound experiments. In 1964 they exhibited in New York and saw Andy Warhol’s light show there. In return, the Americans marveled at the European experiments.
In Italy, too, the nightclubs offered young artists and designers the opportunity to break new ground. Groups like Archizoom, Gruppo 9999 and Gruppo 65 worked with them to invent legendary clubs like Space Electronic in Florence and Mach2 in Rimini. Even in Spain, the Franco dictatorship afforded liberal clubs on the Costa Brava to polish up the foreign policy image.
Ansprechpartnerin: Jessica Zobel, Telefon: 06131 - 70-16293; Presse-Desk, Telefon: 06131 - 70-12108, [email protected]
Photos of the broadcast are available from ZDF Press and Information, phone: 06131 – 70-16100, and from https://presseportal.zdf.de/presse/radicaldisco
Trailer for “Radical Disco – The early years of the clubs”: https://kurz.zdf.de/sHH/
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Press contact:
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Phone: +49 – (0) 6131 – 70-12121
Original content from: 3sat, transmitted by news aktuell
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