The Bouncer is Always Above Us

Lisa Dieterle

Keywords: Carnival, Escapism

Internship: NODE Berlin Oslo
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lisadieterle.de, lisadieterle@me.com, instagram.com/liska9721

The ‘Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht’ is a Christian pre-Lenten carnival of southern Germany. Characteristic for this regional custom is the disguising and masquerading into the devil, and other hell creatures, which form a world of upside-downs. It is a time, in which people escape societal rules and hierarchies.  
 
In the video work The Bouncer is Always Above Us, devilish and hellish characters are reactivated and break society's binary modes of perception through rave culture and its forms of performance, erotic subculture, and ritual action. As these subcultures create transformations, in social, spiritual, and corporeal ways, people break free from social structures and find a space of acceptance and release.