{"id":68594,"date":"2018-07-20T10:17:16","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T10:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=68594"},"modified":"2018-08-01T08:48:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T08:48:55","slug":"dj-sprinkles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/dj-sprinkles\/","title":{"rendered":"DJ Sprinkles on club culture, capitalism and trans visibility"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art"],"acf":{"main_category":false,"legacy":false,"subtitle":"Deep house legend and artist Terre Thaemlitz talks to SLEEK about the Westernised club scene and the role of electronic music in LGBT space. ","hero":{"video":false,"image":false,"header_color":"white","overlay_color":"","overlay_text_color":"white"},"teasers":{"video":false,"image":false,"width":"4","proportion":"natural"},"related_articles":"","next_article":"","content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

Uninhibited escapism is a central facet of rave culture, be it the fabled fetish parties of Berlin\u2019s burgeoning techno scene or the queer-inclusive club nights held in Orthodox Christian Tbilisi. But for Terre Thaemlitz, better known in the scene by her lionised deep house moniker DJ Sprinkles, electronic music was never about freedom. \u201cI grew up in Springfield Missouri,\u201d she explains, \u201cwhere listening to electronic music got your ass kicked.\u201d For a teenage Thaemlitz, residing in America\u2019s Midwest, there was no tight-knit techno community to fall back on, and certainly no queer havens for trans youths like herself to seek refuge. \u201c<\/span>Even the idea of there being a country where Depeche Mode was actually played on the radio was like a utopian fantasy,\u201d she tells me, \u201cbut with time I learned that, in Europe, Depeche Mode was just regular pop music, and most fans were standard, braindead fucks anyway.\u00a0For me, that escapist model \u2014 escaping into a social context that housed one kind of music \u2014 was not part of my experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Thaemlitz\u2019s distinctly non-hedonistic introduction to electronic music underpins her intelligent and insightful approach to art \u2014 from <\/span>Soulnessless, <\/span><\/i>the disruptive 30-hour long piano solo (and world\u2019s first full-length mp3 album), which explores exploitation and wage labour, to the self-professed \u201cunenergetic\u201d electronic explorations of DJ Sprinkles that delve \u201c<\/span>deep into the bowel of house\u201d.<\/span><\/i> \u201cFor me any communal experience was much less about dancing,\u201d she explains, speaking of her residency at former NYC trans club, Sally\u2019s II, \u201cand more about how that experience related to an intergenerational trans scene. People were exchanging information on how to stay safe, how to protect each other, what transitional therapies were working or weren\u2019t, how to get access to hormones\u2026\u201d she recalls, \u201cthe music was secondary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

And music comes second in Thaemlitz\u2019s own practice, too.\u00a0<\/span>Her resoundingly conceptual audio-visual-textual output is fuelled by a decidedly feminist, post-humanist, anti-spiritualist and responsibility-based perspective, constructing a unique discourse that transcends the typical musical sphere.\u00a0Her 2017 album, <\/span>Deproduction, <\/span><\/i>for example,<\/span> considers how LGBTQ+ conceptions of family and matrimony tend, overwhelmingly, to surrender to heteronormative and Western Humanist ideas of the nuclear home, as well as tackling the taboos surrounding the moral decision not to procreate. And then there\u2019s the wealth of pithy critical essays that populate the website of her Comatonse imprint, traversing everything from trans issues to communism, which, thanks to her 18 years living in Japan, take into account a refreshingly non-Western school of thought. \u201cI came to Japan with pre-formulated Western ideas,\u201d Thaemlitz tells me \u2014 it\u2019s difficult not to be captivated by her effortless eloquence and the way she speaks with absolutely no hint of pretension or superiority \u2014 \u00a0\u201cand certain things are totally different \u2014 like how the relationships between visibility and power function.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The differences between LGBT attitudes in Japanese culture and the West have been glaring to Thaemlitz, who spent 11 years living in New York, before relocating to Kawasaki via Oakland, California, and they\u2019ve undoubtedly shaped their respective queer underground scenes. \u201cJapan doesn\u2019t conform to the Pride-based Western LGBT model, which is about the reconciliation of identities,\u201d Thaemlitz explains. \u201cIn the West we\u2019re so preoccupied with the idea that we visually represent ourselves based on what our identities are. In Japan it\u2019s very much more that you have a fa\u00e7ade, and that fa\u00e7ade sort of facilitates a social performance that doesn\u2019t necessarily correlate to what your personal affectations are.\u201d It\u2019s something Thaemlitz attributes to an absence of visible sexuality in the Japanese club scene \u2014 a far cry from the out-and-proud, bondage-clad Berliners who flock to Berghain every Sunday. Not that that\u2019s necessarily a bad thing. \u201cBerlin has its own overinflated sense of safety,\u201d the DJ asserts. \u201cI\u2019ve been harassed in Berlin when I\u2019ve been walking in drag before, and I\u2019ve known other trans people who have.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

As a self-identifying \u201cnon-essentialist, non-op MTFTMTF\u2026\u201d, who doesn\u2019t see herself as conforming particularly to either gender (but definitely not \u201cmale\u201d unless circumstance absolutely demands it), Thaemlitz has the ~privilege~<\/em> of a firm grasp on the situation, having experienced marginalisation in both West and non-Western societies. \u201cIn the US, there is this English lineage of individualism where people will feel empowered and entitled to express themselves at all times,\u201d Thaemlitz explains. \u201cSo if they don\u2019t like you, you\u2019re a \u2018faggot\u2019 and you get spit on, shouted at, punched… whatever. In Japan, it\u2019s the opposite. If they don\u2019t like you the worst thing they can do is ice you out and totally ignore you. For me, that silence is golden \u2014 it means if someone really fucking hates me they\u2019re going to leave me alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>But Thaemlitz is quick to point out that even this take on it stems from this kind of aforementioned privilege, and that she has known Japanese trans people who said they would rather be spit on, if only to have their existence acknowledged, albeit in unsavoury circumstances.\u00a0\u201cI in no way romanticise the oppressiveness of that silence in Japan \u2014 it\u2019s totally fucked \u2014 but contextually for me, I feel safer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s somewhat of a contradiction that most of Thaemlitz\u2019s overseas gigs, then, take place at majority white, hetero parties \u2014 because those promoters are the ones who can afford the cost of a ticket from Japan. \u201cAs someone who has always had a continuing relationship to closets, I know that no matter how hetero a space appears, you don\u2019t know what everyone is doing,\u201d Thaemlitz explains. And she\u2019s also upfront about her reasons for DJing \u2014 \u201cI only perform out of economic necessity,\u201d she admits, \u201cand the contradictions that come out of that are part of the contradictions of employment.\u201d She\u2019s keen to flag the bourgeois perception that art is divorced from labour, and the misconceptions, or double standards, that this perpetuates in the creative industries. \u201cPeople mistakenly believe that artists and musicians are free to choose where we perform, when and for whom, but this isn\u2019t how the world works. Especially for a producer on my level \u2014 by which I mean a low level. You really don\u2019t have choices in that weird, lofty sense and that seems like a real fantasy modelling of capitalism; it\u2019s really unproductive to someone who is anti capitalist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"

That being said, though, Thaemlitz still operates on a moralist basis as much as possible, and is fervently opposed to what she calls \u201caudio imperialism\u201d, whereby DJs accept invitations to play in impoverished countries, accepting luxuries during their stay that are totally foreign to their inhabitants.\u00a0<\/span>This thoughtful, irrevocably decolonial and power sensitive approach is the fabric of what Thaemlitz does\u00a0\u2014 characterising her entire body of work in a way that\u2019s both refreshingly self-aware and deeply genuine. Though Thaemlitz rejects the idea that she\u2019s any less of a sell-out than anyone else \u2014 \u201cwe\u2019re sold out the minute we are born in a hospital,\u201d she declares, \u201cthere is a commercial exchange around our births. It\u2019s over\u201d \u2014 her truly inspiring output begs to differ. It’s rare to come across an artist making such urgently important work with such potential to stimulate desperately-needed conversation, so when we do, it’s well worth shouting about.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You can catch DJ Sprinkles tomorrow, 21 July at Climate of Fear<\/em> at Modular+, Berlin<\/a>.<\/p>\n"}],"hero_title":""},"yoast_head":"\nDJ Sprinkles on club culture, capitalism and trans visibility DJ Sprinkles on club culture, capitalism and trans visibility<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/dj-sprinkles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DJ Sprinkles on club culture, capitalism and trans visibility DJ Sprinkles on club culture, capitalism and trans visibility\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/dj-sprinkles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-07-20T10:17:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-01T08:48:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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