Dr. Anita Jóri & Dr. Steffen Lepa
Archiving Berlin Techno Culture: Digital Preservation and Reconstruction Techniques for Musico-Cultural Heritage
Seminar, English, 4 SWS, 2 +2 ECTS (max. 2 ECTS in Studium Generale possible, plus 2 ECTS in elective area), 12 places
Fridays, 14-18 h, weekly, starts 17.10.2025, Hauptgebäude TU Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, room H 3001

Registration: personally at 17.10., 14 h in the introductory session. 

Berlin has long been the epicenter of the global techno music scene. Emerging from the city's vibrant underground culture in the late 1980s, the Berlin Techno movement gained international recognition for its raw, hypnotic sound and innovative approach to electronic music and dance cultures. In 2024, UNESCO officially inscribed Berlin Techno on its list of intangible cultural heritage. Unfortunately, much of the historical material related to this culture exists only in analog form, scattered across archives and private collections. Additionally, many historically significant clubs have already closed or are set to close, and important figures are passing away. This situation has motivated the seminar organizers to initiate the digital Berlin Techno Archive, an online platorm aimed at providing acomprehensive digital resource on Berlin Techno history for researchers and the interested public. Since this culture is inherently tied to venues with distinct looks and sounds, the archive will also include VR reconstructions of the most important venues. While the organizers are securing funding and industry partners for this large endeavor, the seminar aims to push forward the project and integrate motivated students. In the kick-off seminar, we will focus on two important clubs: the now-closed E-Werk and Renate, which is set to be closed by the end of 2025. Participants from TU and UdK, with diverse academic backgrounds, will work in collaborative teams to preserve the unique histories, aesthetics, and sounds of these two venues through hands-on historiography techniques. The seminar's expected outcomes include audiovisual hypertext narratives and VR reconstructions, which are planned to be showcased in a public exhibition alongside selected material artifacts. At the same time, the digitized artifacts, narrative histories, and VR-reconstructed venues produced will form the foundation of the future Berlin Techno Archive. The seminar offers participants the opportunity to enhance their practical skills in digital archaeology, history, and archival work, as well as current audiovisual VR reconstruction techniques for historic venues, while gaining a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural roots of Berlin's club and techno culture. 

Fulfilment criteria for ungraded accreditation: regular and active participation.

Anita Jóri is a postdoc research associate at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Jóri’s research and publications focus on the discursive and terminological aspects of electronic (dance) music culture. She is one of the curators of CTM Festival’s Discourse programme. She is also the author of the monograph The Discourse Community of Electronic Dance Music (transcript, 2022) and one of the editors of the books The New Age of Electronic Dance Music and Club Culture(Springer, 2020), Musik & Empowerment (Springer, 2020) Musik & Marken (Springer, 2022) and Living at Night in Times of Pandemic. Night Studies and Club Culture in France and Germany (transcript, 2024). 
Steffen Lepa ist als Postdoc-Researcher und Lecturer am Fachgebiet Audiokommunikation der TU Berlin tätig. Der Medien-, Kommunikations- und Musikwissenschaftler war Leiter des DFG-Forschungsprojekts „Survey Musik und Medien – Empirische Basisdaten und theoretische Modellierung der Mediatisierung alltäglichen Musikhörens in Deutschland“ (2012-2016), Subprojektleiter im EU Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekt „abc_dj“ und 2018-2019 Gastprofessor für „Medien und Musik“ an der HMTM Hannover. Er realisierte Kooperationsvorhaben mit d&b audiotechnik, dem Branchenverband Livekomm, der Berliner Philharmonie und der Berlin Clubcommission. Seine Forschungsgebiete sind Populärkultur, Audiokommunikation, Publikumsforschung, Nutzung und Wirkung von Musik- und Audiomedien, Methoden der Sozialforschung und Music Information Retrieval.