Rave story and interactive mapping.
https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/43804?fbclid=IwAR1QNi6yBVXhOohR-FRY0736fjPpTHSPuZJMtXAbeNzosoEDj_jL8OV1ZPo
Monday, May 20, 2019
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Post-cynicism and Eris Drew's Motherbeat: Surviving Cisnormativity and Transphobia
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/14/the-return-of-breakbeats-electronic-music-eris-drew-violet?fbclid=IwAR0lSnxx-PnLvBly7hmr_zMc6-dl0Fa5ly4EkvG6i7psy7WdEcbAmZkh2RU
"The aesthetic of recent queer electronic stars such as Arca and Venus X could be seen as dysmorphic, harsh and exclusive – a retaliation to a world that sought to deny them agency. "
Arca's music and videos are certainly dyphoria visualized. Their work often features screaming, screeching, disformed bodies, animal parts penetrating and mutilating their own skin. Their work is scary to say the least, yet I am a huge fan of this groundbreaking trans art.
This article focuses on the shift away from this type of paranoid, dystopian, dysphoric reaction to a a world that does not recognize trans existence, and into a more utopian queer dance community.
As easy as it is to wallow in the negative and to reflect your most cynical self outward to the world, the dancefloor becomes one of the only places for true euphoria. As Eris Drew stated in her explanation of the Motherbeat, the only time her trans body and identity can be fully expressed are in moments of euphoria, accessed through the speakers and the rave. What different powers can be unlocked by a dancefloor of queer ravers dancing to euphoric music such as breaks.
"The aesthetic of recent queer electronic stars such as Arca and Venus X could be seen as dysmorphic, harsh and exclusive – a retaliation to a world that sought to deny them agency. "
Arca's music and videos are certainly dyphoria visualized. Their work often features screaming, screeching, disformed bodies, animal parts penetrating and mutilating their own skin. Their work is scary to say the least, yet I am a huge fan of this groundbreaking trans art.
This article focuses on the shift away from this type of paranoid, dystopian, dysphoric reaction to a a world that does not recognize trans existence, and into a more utopian queer dance community.
As easy as it is to wallow in the negative and to reflect your most cynical self outward to the world, the dancefloor becomes one of the only places for true euphoria. As Eris Drew stated in her explanation of the Motherbeat, the only time her trans body and identity can be fully expressed are in moments of euphoria, accessed through the speakers and the rave. What different powers can be unlocked by a dancefloor of queer ravers dancing to euphoric music such as breaks.
Breaks as sonic warfare and the uptake of dead weapons for queer resistance and transcendence
Thinking about queer hauntology and this article with Quotes from Ines and Eris. How can we also see this in the uptake of divergent lines of the hardcore continuum (gabber, hardstyle, juke, jungle) by the queer community. What is at stake in this kind of practice.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/14/the-return-of-breakbeats-electronic-music-eris-drew-violet
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/14/the-return-of-breakbeats-electronic-music-eris-drew-violet
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Do raves actually have radical potential?
If we are just going by Kristian Russel's analysis of 80's rave culture in "Lysergia Suburbia", I would have to say absolutely not. I think that his comparisons of 60's psychedelia and 80's acid house are superficial at best and don't actually make a good case for any possible political potential of these subcultures. First of all I don't really understand the correlation Russel proposed between the AIDS and crack epidemic and UK ravers turning to ecstasy as an alternative. Heroin and crack was never a popular drug used in club/dance culture as far as I know, so I find it hard to believe that ecstasy emerged as a "safer" alternative to this. Positioning psychedelics and dance music as some moral high-ground that one chooses to be on is simply racist. Who actually had the choice to turn to psychedelics rather than crack during the 80's? Certainly not those whose communities were decimated with gov. infiltration of drugs and racist crackdowns.
Russel claims that in 70's disco culture, the conjunction of dancing and drugs was used strictly for sexual foreplay and that the subsequent creation of electronic dance music and the culture of ecstasy/LSD use that developed first in the UK somehow magically shifted dancing away from sexual foreplay and into "music appreciation". I think there are so many things wrong with this analysis and frankly it reads as ahistorical and racist. Was Russel unaware of Soul Train or the myriad of deep cultural implications that disco music had for the black community? UK white ravers were certainly not the first subculture of people to use dance as a form of higher musical appreciation, and this completely ignored the very roots of house music. Also, 80's dance music and the spaces that fostered it did in fact (and still do) have sexual implications, mainly for LGBT people. Dancing and club spaces have always been important sites of sexual freedom and exploration for queer people. Just because a certain music subculture has visible sexual implications does not make it inferior or somehow less intellectual, in fact it could be exactly what holds radical potential.
Furthermore, I do not think that claiming a subcultural identity is inherently radical. Neither hippies in the 60's nor ravers in the 80's actually changed the social order simply by eating acid and dancing. I think this ties into Travis Alabanza's discussion about the difference between a queer product and a queer practice. It is simply not enough to present something as queer or radical, it takes intentional work and a specific perspective that influences your entire practice.
Russel claims that in 70's disco culture, the conjunction of dancing and drugs was used strictly for sexual foreplay and that the subsequent creation of electronic dance music and the culture of ecstasy/LSD use that developed first in the UK somehow magically shifted dancing away from sexual foreplay and into "music appreciation". I think there are so many things wrong with this analysis and frankly it reads as ahistorical and racist. Was Russel unaware of Soul Train or the myriad of deep cultural implications that disco music had for the black community? UK white ravers were certainly not the first subculture of people to use dance as a form of higher musical appreciation, and this completely ignored the very roots of house music. Also, 80's dance music and the spaces that fostered it did in fact (and still do) have sexual implications, mainly for LGBT people. Dancing and club spaces have always been important sites of sexual freedom and exploration for queer people. Just because a certain music subculture has visible sexual implications does not make it inferior or somehow less intellectual, in fact it could be exactly what holds radical potential.
Furthermore, I do not think that claiming a subcultural identity is inherently radical. Neither hippies in the 60's nor ravers in the 80's actually changed the social order simply by eating acid and dancing. I think this ties into Travis Alabanza's discussion about the difference between a queer product and a queer practice. It is simply not enough to present something as queer or radical, it takes intentional work and a specific perspective that influences your entire practice.
Sunday, February 24, 2019
TEMPORALITIES + FISHER'S WHITENESS
Fisher quotes Frederic Jameson while discussing the temporalities of control societies. "The breakdown of temporality releases the present of time from all activities and intentionality's that might focus it and make it a space of praxis" (26).
In the context of the life of a student we are made to pay for our own exploitation, even go into debt for it, all in the name of a successful future. Our ability to simply exist in the present is not an option under capitalism, and our most basic human experiences and temporal present are tainted by this byproduct of capitalist realism.
Students and workers alike share the consciousness of living in a material reality that denies us a present, strips all spirituality and meaning from our notions of the future, and renders nostalgia useless. Simultaneously, nostalgia and futurity are picked up by capitalism and commodified and appropriated to ensure the perpetual reproduction of capitalist empire. Fisher claims that it is too late for nostalgia, that any resistant tactic has been tracked, recorded, studied, and calculated to the point where nothing you could ever do would ever break through the system. On the other hand, as Americans our notions of the future are incredibly tied up in the apparatus of the state. We are told exactly what to hope for and what to expect for our future. We do it all for the family, for the child, and for a "better" future, but what we are really doing is endlessly reproducing systems of control.
How do we reclaim our present temporality?
I try to put Fisher's theories up against real world scenarios, and I can't help but think about the people of Venezuela experiencing some of the most virulent, although completely predictable, forces of imperialism and fascism at the hands of the western empire, namely America. I think it is so clear that Fisher is coming from a place of whiteness and not taking into value the hard fought battles of anti-capitalists in the Global South. When we see working class people uniting to overcome capitalist oppression, do we simply write it off as an ineffective regurgitation of past actions, or do stand in solidarity and follow the lead?
In the context of the life of a student we are made to pay for our own exploitation, even go into debt for it, all in the name of a successful future. Our ability to simply exist in the present is not an option under capitalism, and our most basic human experiences and temporal present are tainted by this byproduct of capitalist realism.
Students and workers alike share the consciousness of living in a material reality that denies us a present, strips all spirituality and meaning from our notions of the future, and renders nostalgia useless. Simultaneously, nostalgia and futurity are picked up by capitalism and commodified and appropriated to ensure the perpetual reproduction of capitalist empire. Fisher claims that it is too late for nostalgia, that any resistant tactic has been tracked, recorded, studied, and calculated to the point where nothing you could ever do would ever break through the system. On the other hand, as Americans our notions of the future are incredibly tied up in the apparatus of the state. We are told exactly what to hope for and what to expect for our future. We do it all for the family, for the child, and for a "better" future, but what we are really doing is endlessly reproducing systems of control.
How do we reclaim our present temporality?
I try to put Fisher's theories up against real world scenarios, and I can't help but think about the people of Venezuela experiencing some of the most virulent, although completely predictable, forces of imperialism and fascism at the hands of the western empire, namely America. I think it is so clear that Fisher is coming from a place of whiteness and not taking into value the hard fought battles of anti-capitalists in the Global South. When we see working class people uniting to overcome capitalist oppression, do we simply write it off as an ineffective regurgitation of past actions, or do stand in solidarity and follow the lead?
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
RA.664 with Turtle
RA Mix and Interview by Turtle Bugg
What about his insistence on a loss of roots culture? A rave-funk futurism that is committed to the past...
Digger culture -> Turtle argues this as intentional culture and commons space but record digger culture outside of New York (Detroit, chicago, domestically) is bleak and the market usually reflects trends along the disco sucks / anti dance / anti queer spectres that haunt vinyl materiality in the States.
MIX and INTERVIEW h e r e
What about his insistence on a loss of roots culture? A rave-funk futurism that is committed to the past...
Digger culture -> Turtle argues this as intentional culture and commons space but record digger culture outside of New York (Detroit, chicago, domestically) is bleak and the market usually reflects trends along the disco sucks / anti dance / anti queer spectres that haunt vinyl materiality in the States.
sometimes you wish you had a record store to call home, sometimes the world is on fire and you are just trying to keep warm on the piles of records burning
MIX and INTERVIEW h e r e
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)