Daniel Kulla

Daniel "classless" Kulla grew up near the Witches' Dance Floor (Hexentanzplatz) in socialist East Germany (DDR), wanted to join the Red Army as a scout and raise the Red Flag on the White House to signal the advent of communism for the whole world, then probably continue to outer space. His language at age 13, when the DDR ended, was Hip Hop. 

After 1990, back in capitalism, he quickly found himself under the West German police/intelligence label Leftist-Extremist ("linksextrem") and attacked by actual Nazis, so he decided to join and support militant antifascism which he does to this day. The language of his antifascism has been Hip Hop.   

Although best known for his popular-scientific political lectures about "Rausch" ("Your consciousness is always altered"), "Lust" ("Life Establishing Connections"), the human hip ("The Hip Movement - What Made Us Human"), class struggle ("Sin Patrón - Factories under Workers' Control in Argentina and elsewhere"), history ("Homer Simpson's Mother") and ideology ("Behind the scenes - always the others!"), Kulla also published a number of books and pamphlets of experimental literature, recorded four albums of no less experimental dance music with Hamburg producer Istari Lasterfahrer (Sozialistischer Plattenbau), as well as several more tracks with various other musicians, and held dozens of events combining talk and literature and music, live as well as DJed. The language of these events has always been Hip Hop.

He got paid for work as a translator of books, as live translator for a "August der Starke" (Saxon King) performance, as a wall painter, polls interviewer, stage hand, salesperson, sex worker, computer class instructor for company staff and programmers, as night-time unloading personnel at the airport, careworker in a disabled people's home and workshop, as actor in theatre plays and short films, as ghostwriter, proofreader, journalist, office data entry worker, and the rest was just for being there. All social status is drag.

Today he is a spectre that is haunted by Europe. He enters Vienna as an important place of socialist history, but also as one of the main birthplaces of modern antisemitism. He invites you to cut the history up and put it back together. The language will be Hip Hop. And probably polka, hardcore, dub, workers songs, jumpstyle, cumbia, gabber, jazz, and the far-away-so-close prospect of the gentle boundless joy and connection of swimming in each other.

Kulla used to be funnier.

Publications listed in the German National Library: https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&query=128617101

Video recording of "Your consciousness is always altered": https://media.ccc.de/v/eh16-29-life_in_transport_leben_im_rausch

Sozialistischer Plattenbau: https://sozialistischer-plattenbau.org/home/tag/classless-kulla/

Music videos

"Won't be long til jungle drum": https://youtu.be/zWsDcUdZ5kI

"Barderos de la vereda": https://youtu.be/qPR7SYTK9lo

"Mieses Stück Scheisze": https://youtu.be/zyF8k5bv9B4

 

Projektinfo