Don’t let the crisis stop you from celebrating 42020!
Cannabis, weed, ganja, marihuana, spliff, joint, blunt, fatty, doobie, torpedo, zoot, phattie, doob, jimmy, juju, hogger, reefer, bone, toke tube, bun – whatever you call it: if you love it as much as we do, join us in a unique online celebration of stoner culture!
Clusterduck and Feltzine have joined forces with Panke club to bring you some much needed good vibes to chill and fly away in these uncertain times.
On 4:20 PM (CET) of the 20th of April 2020, we will reveal a series of unique digital experiences on this event page, conceived and produced to help you enjoy 42020 the proper way. Roll a fat one, get comfortable, plug out from our clusterfucked reality and jack into the digital stonerspace with us!
But before you celebrate and get completely lost and hopelessly stoned, there’s also some stuff below you might want to read. Beware – it might bum you out a little. But hey, what’s the meaning in flying away from fucked-up shit if you can’t use your imagination to come back and fix it?
42020 – GETTING HIGH IN CRAZY TIMES
We live in the age of quarantine, of perpetual crisis, of the pandemic reaction to an unsustainable system poisoning each one of us in different ways.
This might be new to some of you, but it has been clear to us for ages. We are the creative class, the burn-out generation, the cognitariat. We are the underpaid graphic designer, the video-maker documenting expensive weddings for little money, the struggling freelance advertiser promoting businesses she/he/they hate, the social media manager spreading viral messages around the web. We’re the DJ playing for free drinks, the digital art curator working at a bar to pay her/his/their rent. Compelled with guilt and constant psychological pressure into giving our clients a huge R.O.I. on our underpaid labor. We’re literally the fuel of an economic system built on signification and images.
We live in the viral age since we were born, since Chernobyl and the Balkan War, passing through decades of precarity and a permanent global war that from Iraq and Afghanistan has spread through NYC and the Twin Towers to the whole world. And that was just the start.
We are not new to viruses, exception states, and emergencies, they have been part of our daily life ever since.
We just want to share with you a story and, possibly, an experience.
A glimpse into a funny world of constant change and adaptation.
This particular story begins with a passionate idea and a difficult challenge.
The passionate idea is to properly celebrate 420 in 2020, bringing together different digital and urban initiatives from Europe and the US – Clusterduck Collective (Berlin/Florence), Feltzine (San Francisco/Brooklyn) Radio Rasclat (Kassel) and Panke Club (Berlin) – to give their fans the proper stoner celebration this day deserves.
The challenge, of course, is COVID19 and the heavy restrictions it imposes on public events, ultimately leading to their cancellation, in order to avoid the spreading of the virus in Europe and worldwide.
Luckily, as we said, we are used to growing up in a fu**ed-up world and making the best out of it.
We are used to finding ways to solve problems you couldn’t fix by thinking the way our parents would.
We are used to finding quick and easy solutions for big and complicated problems our bosses wouldn’t know how to deal with – for free.
We are used to crises.
Some of those involved in this project were experiencing the alienating and claustrophobic condition of quarantine just while writing this concept (doesn’t show, does it?) and imagining possible ways to escape from this dystopian situation. These included finding alternative ways to gather with their friends and loved ones on the Internet.
So that’s how we imagined a multitude of users illuminated by their screens, gathering for an online party, while getting high and enjoying time together, respecting the physical distancing imposed by the virus while still coming closer together as a community.
This isn’t a dream, it’s a reality we want to build together with you. Despite all the horrors out there, we still want to dream. We still want to hope. We still want to fight. Let’s come together as a family, let’s join forces as human beings!
Weed is not simply an escapist drug we use to forget our problems (well ok, it might be sometimes). Weed has helped us form friendships, create ideas, imagining different possibilities. It has helped us bring colour and playfulness to a world all too often devoid of it. It is an important element shaping our lives. It is part of our culture. A part we are proud of, and proud to claim as ours.
Let’s not forget that, while now enjoying increasing acceptance and even legal recognition in some parts of the world, weed and stoner culture have been criminalized and persecuted for decades, leading to the incarceration of millions. Prisons all over the world are still full of people condemned for minor drug related crimes, with outcomes that are often disastrous for their families and their communities. Let’s remember that racism and classism play an essential part in the witch hunt that reactionaries around the world are still conducting against drug users. The war against drugs has wreaked havoc on the weakest and most marginalized groups in our societies – and still does so to this day. Remember this next time you get weed from your park dealer. Think about it next time you order a bag of hash from your delivery service of choice. And while we should celebrate and welcome the legalization of weed culture, let’s stay vigilant of its commercialization and privatization. We’re stoners, not dumb.
Ok ok, enough serious talk. Now is the time to be happy. Now is the time to SMOKE A FAT ONE. So let’s come together, let’s celebrate, LET’S GET HIGH AF AND FLY AWAY!
IT’S 42020!!!!!! – Cluster Duck
Stay tuned and follow this event – all fun and psychedelic activities and goodies will be revealed here during Monday the 20th of April!!!