Club Culture, Electronic Music, Intermedia in Central and Eastern Europe
Creating Spaces of Empowerment and Resistance
With Marina Gržinić,  Elisa  (Elizen the Emperor) and Bass Resistance: Ann Mysochka  & Habitat Shaking aka Róman Selezinka

Club culture creates safe spaces for living queer sexuality, fosters multimedia experimentation with music, video art and performance and then and now can be labs for new social ideas. The punk and new wave scene in 1980s Ljubljana was one inspiring example. And to this day, party collectives in Ukraine, Georgia and Eastern Germany dance in resistance against authoritarianism in their respective contexts while maintaining diaspora communities abroad. Slovenian video artist and philosopher Marina Gržinić revisits the 1980s Ljubljana scene and foregrounds its relevance today. Berlin based Bass Resistance is a Ukrainian DJ collective „with a mission“, in opposition to the war and oppression. The Never//Now party collective provides emancipatory subculture for local youths and supports democracy building initiatives in Brandenburg when state funding for such projects is becoming scarcer. Film screening and DJ sets round off the program.

Marina Gržinić holds a PhD in philosophy and works as a Principal Research Associate at the Institute of Philosophy of the Scientific Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) in Ljubljana. She also works as a freelance media theorist, art critic and curator. Gržinić is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She has published hundreds of articles and essays, as well as numerous books.
Since 1982, Gržinić has worked with video, in collaboration with Aina Šmid. They participated in more than 40 video art projects, shot a 16mm short film and created numerous video and media installations; they independently directed several video documentaries and television productions. In 1997, they created an interactive CD-ROM for the ZKM in Karlsruhe. Gržinić and Šmid presented and exhibited their video works and video installations at more than 100 video festivals around the world and received several important awards for their video production.

Marina Gržinić  is a curator of the exhibitions Slovenian Punk  & Photography (5. 12. 2023 – 11. 2. 2024, Galerija CD, Ljubljana); Punk. Subculture. Socialism. Archives of the Future. Photography from Slovenia. (27. 4. 2024–26. 5. 2024, A.K.T; Pforzheim, Germany and 03. 08. 2024–28. 09. 2024, Pavelhaus, Laafeld, Austria). Furthermore, she has curated programs of film and video art, including the seminal special program Sex, Rock ‘n’ Roll and History – (Video)films From Eastern Europe 1950-2000 for the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2000).

Gržinić & Šmid’s video “Transcentrala” is on view in the exhibition. 

Elisa Georgi is a cultural mediator, political communicator, and voice of Berlin’s club culture. With an academic background in philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, and semiotics, she combines theoretical analysis with practical experience—especially where culture intersects with social conflicts. At the Center for Art and Urbanistics (ZK/U Berlin), she works at the intersection of art, urban society, and political communication. There, she designs participatory processes and cultural formats that understand urban spaces as places of democratic negotiation. Her commitment is also fueled by her experiences in East Germany—by her knowledge of structural breaks, stories of transformation, and the need for solidarity-based counter-concepts.

As Elizen the Emperor, she is a DJ, producer, and curator. Her sets move confidently through the spaces between electronic music genres—from left-field groove to house and disco to organic techno. Her dramaturgy follows no dogma, but rather a political and emotional intuition: the dance floor as a collective space of experience. She specifically advocates for FLINTA* artists, promotes diversity on and behind the stage, and understands curatorial work as a structural intervention in existing power relations.
As a founding member and booker of the collective NEVER//NOW, she explicitly links club culture with anti-fascist practice. The collective understands parties as political spaces—organized on a voluntary basis, supported by solidarity, and clearly positioned against authoritarian tendencies. Here, dance becomes resistance, community becomes a safe space, and music becomes a form of social intervention. For Elisa Georgi, club culture is not escapism. It is an alternative—a lively, solidarity-based practice that generates movement: on the dance floor and beyond.

Bass Resistance

Ann Mysochka, born in Kharkiv, Ukraine and working in Kyiv, is a DJ and collage artist. Her sets are a tribute to dance music with engaging vocals, shifted rhythms and heavy bass lines transcending musical genre boundaries. Her passion for music began at the age of 19, when she discovered DJing. Although her sets are varied, the genres she feels close to are afro house, deep house, tribal house and French touch. She often combines them with ethnic motifs in the form of vocals, percussion and traditional instruments. In addition, she explores new genres and their combinations, such as dark Italo disco, tech house and Detroit techno. As a collage artist, she makes analog collages with scissors and glue, using old magazines. A member of the Agency of Artists in Exile since June 2022, she performed as a DJ at the Party in Exile at Mucem and during Visions d’exil 2022. Resident of LYL Radio and 20ft Radio and member of Bass Resistance.

Roman Selezinka aka Habitat Shaking is a Ukraine-born (Kolomyja in West Ukraine) DJ, Radio Maker, and Cultural Manager. Since 2016 he has been curating purpose-driven electronic music events in Berlin with a focus on fundraising and awareness building. Roman is a co-founder of the event series „Chain Reaction“, artist collective „Bass Resistance“ and Festival „Ukrainian Sound Garden“ His DJ alias Habitat Shaking is set to represent fresh and modern sound that makes people dance and wonder. His sets mostly consist of fresh tracks full of energy and sophisticated sound design to complement the vibes housy discothèques and bassy raves. Habitat Shaking is known for its outstanding music selection for every DJ slot and special closing sets that deliver a euphoric final dance experience.