Berlin

Into the labyrinth

Since its inception in April of this year, Salon – Zur wilden Renate’s mysterious indoor labyrinth has become the stuff of Berlin myth, best described as a journey “from ass to soul”.

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Since its inception in April of this year, Salon – Zur wilden Renate’s mysterious indoor labyrinth has become the stuff of Berlin myth. Ten euros and a quiet word to the bar staff leads to a gold coin and soon, an entreaty from Georg Losch. Georg is co-founder of the Karmanoia collective and your guide into the Peristal Singum – “not a labyrinth,” he states emphatically, preferring to call it a journey “from ass to soul”.

Taking you by the hand, Georg leads you to the entrance of this magical cupboard of sexual connotations, one that would be sure to offend the religious sensibilities of C.S. Lewis. The cage door shuts behind you, and you find yourself in cramped quarters where an atypical psychedelic soundscape pushes you deep through a maze of orifices, replete with vaginal openings and jars of unknown specimens.

‘Peristal’ derives from ‘peristalsis’, the process of digestion, and you soon find yourself being ‘digested’ by the bowels of Renate: you climb, slide and crawl further and further through a reproductive tract of narrowed passages, wooded wombs, caves and hovels.

“Some people go through it like they do through life: they just look for the exit” says Georg. Though, if the Peristal is representative of life, it must be one dreamed up by David Lynch and Tim Burton.

Whether you enjoy exploring the intricate network of tunnels and chambers, find yourself connecting with long-repressed infantile emotions or merely find the experience creepy, by the time you reach the lower depths of dungeons and seemingly perpetual darkness, you’ll surely feel disoriented.

For those of a frigid disposition, this is one rabbit hole you don’t want to go down.

Peristal Singum at Salon – Zur wilden Renate, Wed-Sat 18-22