Since its inception in 2013, Pornceptual has consistently held its place as one of the hottest parties in Berlin. Raquel Fedato and Chris Phillips have carefully curated the event series to strike the perfect balance between kink life and kick drums. Ahead of the 6th Year Anniversary Party, we asked the pair to pick out some of their favourite Pornceptual images.
Of course, it’s hard to convey the full Pornceptual club experience in a photo – you really need to be there to fully understand what it’s like –but these images should give you a taste of what you can expect. Raquel and Chris have selected one photo from each year, and it’s fun to compare where it is now to where it started. Join the 6th Birthday on August 10th at Alte Münze.
2018: PORN Ball
In the spirit of Paris is Burning, we decided to host a mini ball at our PORN Ball edition. The ball was hosted by AriGato from House of St. Laurent. We had guest judges and featured two categories: ‘Sex Siren’ and ‘Runaway.’ It was honestly a mess, but I never had so much fun during an intervention at Pornceptual. The winner look was, without a doubt, the one in the picture above.
___________________
2017: Pornceptual x Unter [NY]
In 2017, we went to New York for the first time to throw a party with our friends from Unter. I remember landing late on Thursday and Seva, the organizer of Unter, drove us from the airport straight to the venue. When I got there, I couldn’t believe my eyes. We were the most enormous and coolest warehouse I had ever been to. It had a sick view of Manhattan’s skyline. My greatest memory of that party was watching the sunrise behind the DJ booth while Volvox delivered an epic set.
___________________
2016: PORN Factory
PORN Factory was our first party at Alte Munze. It is incredible to see how the party evolved from its first edition at this venue. MadKate, the performer in the picture, presented a performance on top of the bar at one of the floors. Inspired by the factory theme, she masturbated using a hammer. It certainly marked an excellent start to our years at the former coin factory.
___________________
2015: Anti-PORN
After this party, I remember waking up with a text message from the owner of Prince Charles asking what had happened at the previous night as one of the neighbors had seen “some naked people crawling on the windows.” On this picture, you can see that was the case. For some weird reason, the craziest and funniest situations always happen in our backstage.
___________________
2014: 1st Year Anniversary
At the end of this year, we celebrate six years of Projekt Gestalten’s (right) residency at Pornceptual. He was our first ever resident DJ and has been a significant part of Pornceptual since the very beginning. At this point, he was still experimenting with skirts before moving into his nowadays extravagant outfits. His fabulous fan skills and signature wedding dress became a legend not only at Pornceptual, but also in Berlin’s nightlife. And there is, of course, no need to mention his great musical taste: versatile, energetic, and dark.
___________________
2013: Tropical PORN
This was our first party ever. Our non-DJ friends were DJing indie music; we had the nastiest performance with whip cream and bananas, and the next day we had to scrub the club’s floor to get rid of all confetti we had brought. You can definitely say we have come a long way.
___________________
2018: Porn 5th Year Anniversary
I took this photo from Betty Fvck in our photobooth. Our last birthday was one of my favourite parties ever. It was very rewarding to celebrate our birthday with so many friends. On the same week, we also had a very steamy Boiler Room session.
___________________
2017: Animalistic Porn by Pornceptual
This is the first photo I’ve ever taken of my partner (Malte). I fell in love from the very first moment that I saw him at the party, but I had no idea at the time that this would turn out to be one of the most fulling and meaningful relationships of my life. I can still remember the moment when I went up to him on the venue’s stairs and nervously asked if I could take his photo.
___________________
2016: Pornceptual does Feel Festival
This was our first time hosting a Pornceptual stage at a festival. We had a bus leaving Berlin with 80 from our friends and crew and the party started from the moment we left Berlin. During the festival, we hosted the Pornceptual floor as an intervention. Our door person would brief festival-goers about our concept and our safe space rules, only allowing entry to the people who agreed to it. In that way, we were able to recreate a bit of the Pornceptual club experience inside a festival. I took this photo while we were chilling in the morning at the festival’s sauna, after hosting a very intense dancefloor during the night.
___________________
2015: Porn 2nd Year Anniversary
My flatmate at the time became “Masha”, a new drag queen to host the events. Seeing a close friend change his personality in order to create this persona was really interesting.
___________________
2014: Porn 1st Year Anniversary
A photo from our first anniversary! The party started to grow and we changed to a bigger location, which turned out to be a challenge but definitely the right decision. We also started to push more the dress code and add some fetish elements, while collaborating with a lot of amazing artists. It was exciting to see how the project was developing.
2013: Tropical Porn by Pornceptual
This was our first party in Berlin. Everything was quite spontaneous and we didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be a really fun night. The photo is from one of our first performances, he was covered in fruits and cream inviting people to eat from his naked body. We had to spend hours cleaning the sofa so the owner of the venue wouldn’t get angry.
The Pornceptual 6th Year Anniversary party takes place on Saturday, August 10 an Alte Münze.
