DISTORTION
Copenhagen Street Life & New Dance Music – since 1998
ANIMAL COMMUNICATION // ACTIONHYGGE.COM (fka human productions)
Idea & media & talks & consulting agency – since 1998 / 2011
NUS/NUS
Secretariat & Agency – since 2008
FONDEN DISTORTION KØBENHAVN
Foundation for arts&culture and social architecture in the public space – since 2012
KARRUSEL
3 days of Disco, House & Techno in the woods – since 2014
HANGAREN
Space for rent & nightclub – since 2018
KALEIDO
Electronic Music Festival in Århus – since 2024
In everything we do, two dominant feelings:
>> Copenhagen is amazing. Socially, politically, philosophically and aesthetically there is A LOT to say about the rare Danish blend of pig-farming and Scandi-cool.
>> Mobile events, impulsive celebrations, off-location concerts, street dinners, pop-up culture, the public space – any happening with an unconventional format – are breeding grounds for MAGIC MOMENTS. Call it the spirit of rave. Some call it jazz. We exist to create human electricity.
>> In the period 1998-2008, the human office produced a 16-page guide for The Copenhagen Post, a national weekly newspaper. We wrote & edited & produced ca. 35 articles, every week, 531 Wednesdays in a row (!!) = a total of 18.000+ stories about Copenhagen culture (!!).
>> Distortion was originally a just-for-fun project: for 10 years, all events were small (like 20-200 guests), improvised, underground, mobile… no employees, no budget, all daytime events were 100% free, we didn’t even run bars (!!). We decided to go “pro” in 2008, when Distortion started to attract around 5.000 people and professional security became necessary. Call it “volunteer work” or “product development” but it took 11 years (!!) before Distortion could pay one office salary.
>> In 2015, the Danish Parliament hired us to design & produce the 100-year celebration for the constitution of Denmark (an update in 1915 where women got the right to vote). We put 8 stages and hosted 15.000 guests all around the Christiansborg Palace – including Jack Lang (legendary French Minister of Culture), a Charlie Hebdo cartoonist survivor and a pool party in the canals (!!). Show us one other country in the world who dares to celebrate a constitutional century with a pool party in the city canals. Since that day, one of the Human Office slogans became “Trust Is The True Luxury”.
>> Of course, we played Pump The Jam from the church bells of Christianshavn, recited melodic poems with long-range horn speakers from the top of the Round Tower (over the entire medieval city centre during Corona lockdowns), we lift bridges for flash-happenings (again and again), we drew hearts in the sky with show-planes over Nørrebro when Master Fatman died – and we event-launched Vice Magazine, Politiken Pressen, iByen i byen, L’Institut Francais de Copenhague (Ambassade de France), Sensation White Denmark, Natfilm festival, CPH:DOX…
>> Just for fun, we did pirate parties at the Queen’s Palace – twice!! – in 2001 (Amalienborg courtyard with a bus and fire jugglers) and in 2018 (Intervention in the Christiansborg Banquet Hall with a top-notch chamber choir, announced as a bus of tourists).
>> We hosted hundreds of free street parties with MØ, Kidd, Diplo, Krede&Madvig Jam, Powerplant, Bjarke Ingels, Henrik Vibskov, Medina, Suspekt, WhoMadeWho, Chicks on Speed – and we produced dozens of more or less secret afterparties with DelaSoul, Justice, The Rapture, Simian Mobile Disco, Hot Chip, SuperMayer…
>> All special happenings are announced last minute on human infomail.
The entire team is employed at Nus/Nus ApS.
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That was the Human Office background.
And sometimes I still send my messy newsletter.
In 1999-2001, I was hosting a live internet tv show (today we call them “YouTubers”) on the Superchannel by Superflex, called Super Copenhagen. It was chaotic and anti-aesthetic – some said dada – but there was raw energy and plenty of secrets from the world of arts&culture and the Copenhagen underground.
In 2001, the weekly web-tv stream became the human infomail newsletter. The core idea was to spread secret information about exciting events in Copenhagen and to make nightlife and the art world less pretentious, less closed, more free & open to all, more random.
Around 2006-2008 we reached 5.000+ email subscribers, including 380 journalists, 2.000+ culture professionals from art & music & media & promotors & DJs etc… and then of course our favourites: around 2.500 random subscribers that we did not really know.
The human infomail also got into national shitstorms against the hard right (Pia Kjærsgaard), against the hard left (Modkraft & Strøm) and against the political correct centre (Politiken). And this was all before Twitter and cancel culture!! I deserve a t-shirt.
I stopped sending the email every week around 2013-2014. Nowadays I mainly send the email to promote our own events. But you never know: RANDOMNESS RULES.
Words just appear and woosh!
-tdf.
LOVE: bottom-up from centre, bottom-up from left, bottom-up from right.
HATE: top-down from left, top-down from right, top-down from centre.