ABSTRACT
The border-crossing community of listeners in East and West Berlin guessed and understood the references, but the representatives of the Free Berlin Station's broadcasting commission were repeatedly appalled when they, by chance, tuned into this constantly changing auditory map and West Berlin's pop soundscape. Pop is one such performative practice. The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) faction of the West Berlin assembly questioned the governing Social Democratic Party/Liberal Party (SPD/FDP) coalition on how the mass riot at the show actually happened. Auditory space is such a territory, in which the reformulated registers of senses and a different perception of the cityscape can be explored off the beaten tracks of conservative, middle- and working-class milieus. Consequently, traces of hearing and listening within processes of cultural transfers need to be identified in order to track down transitions from subcultural practices to countercultural social and cultural action becoming a signifier for change.
