No Escape- a statement
Author: redactie redactie
‘A new complete security system. Absolute 100% safety in disco Paradiso Amsterdam. For a society in distress’, read the announcement at the Internet. Saturday night Paradiso introduced the perfect safety-system at the party ‘No Escape’. We live in a society in panic.
Paradiso always used to body search to make the visitors feel safe. The sixties and seventies, when the rock temple of Holland was an anarchistic domestic where it was possible to use heroine at the toilet, are gone. But tonight, as I enter, I get an ‘eye-scan’ and my fingerprints are taken. This information is used to make me a 99,8 per cent unique body-card. And as if that’s not enough rules of behavior are read to me. ‘(…) if you leave any of your luggage it will be destroyed immediately!’ is one of them. Afterwards they ask me some basic questions to figure out what color code I should get. I get a purple button. From the map I get I learn that this button gives me access to the smallest possible area. To enter the other areas someone with a ' higher' color will have to escort me. ‘So I guess yellow stands for perfect behavior?’ I ask the girl behind the desk. ‘O no’, she replies, ‘Often big criminals have a lot of access. That’s the way it works in society too, is it not?’ I feel like a failed little criminal.
I have to admit there was a feeling of what’s going on? for a moment. ‘I’m not going to stay here for long’ says the person who's standing next to me in the body-card line: ‘I experienced this before when I was at the airport, no fun.’ The visitors all respond in their own way to all the security measures they're not used to. Some smile at it, others look surprised. Especially when rules of behaviour are read to us, people react. They don’t like being told what to do. A girl jokingly shouts ‘I sir!’ and walks away like a robot. But most of us understand the whole thing is a joke and just play along.
‘No Escape is a statement,’ Pierre Ballings, director of Paradiso, says. The local government can shut our doors when we do something wrong. That's what happened to the disco Escape, when the police discored drugs was traded there. But absolute safety you can never guarantee. The policies are too far-stretched.’ The tone of Pierre's voice betrays that his understanding with the local government is not a good one. ‘Total safety means staying home.’
What does Pierre want the visitors to experience? What kind of feeling does he want them to have at this party? ‘Its no party. You can call it a happening. Total safety has it's price and that’s no pleasant feeling.’
What's the link between the party- or happening- and the Next 5 Minutes festival theme tactic media?
‘There’s none,’ says Pierre. 'Next 5 Minutes started off in Paradiso several years ago and was transferred to de Balie later on. The happening of tonight isn't strictly part of the festival. The theme did inspire us though. There were a lot of cameras at the wedding of the Dutch heir to the throne Alexander and his Maxima. Tonight, there will be cameras all over the place. Even at the women’s toilet.’
Which gives me the only legal excuse to visit that sacred area.
Jasper Vreken