raves combo 2015.pptx

Raves as Implicit Religion?
(very brief) History pre-1980’s
•  Origin of the term “rave” found
within London Caribbean
community, to mean “party.”
•  Alternate term: “rave-up” - 1965,
The Yardbirds release an album
titled “Having a Rave-Up”
•  1960’s - “to rave” - to speak
enthusiastically about something
•  1967 - Million Volt Light and Sound
Rave - featuring Lennon and
McCartney experimental
electronica piece “Carnival of
Light”
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Early 1980’s
–  Warehouse parties
–  Chicago’s “The
Warehouse” - DJ Frankie
Knuckles
–  “House” music (disco,
synthpop, new wave,
industrial, and punk mixes)
–  Social cross-section appeal
- gay community, black,
white, hispanic, straight, etc.
–  Sampling, remixing, DJ as
artist
Late 1980’s
–  Acid House Summers - the
“mainstreaming” of free parties?
–  1988/89 - Summer of Love
–  Beginning of opposition by
government authorities
–  Dominant link between “house”
music and drugs “ecstasy” and
“acid”
(very brief)
History1980’s
(very brief)
History –
1990’s – 2000’s
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The Love Parade - 1989-2010
2008 - attracted over 1.6 million people
2010- 510 people injured, 21 dead in “crush” – end of the Love Parade.
Political movement (peace) mixed with electronic dance music
Parade floats must be sponsored by “techno” concerns
Bastion of electronic dance music, fueling rebirth of rave phenomenon
worldwide?
•  Festivals, teknivals, dance parties, free parties, underground parties… the
return of the rave?
•  Mid-1990’s often cited as the “end” of the rave era
•  Today - New terminology adopted - same scene?
Philosophy
•  PLUR (peace, love,
unity, respect)
•  Acceptance
•  Openness
•  Positivity
•  Community (tribe) website forums
•  D.I.Y. - antiestablishment origins,
still true?
Mythic dimension of Raves
•  Golden age of the future
- electronica music,
techno beat, UFO
symbols, laser lights images of a idealized,
technological future
•  Symbolic of ambiguities
confronting society
today re: technology?
Mythic dimension of Raves
•  Candy ravers
•  Golden age childhood innocence, playfulness,
trust
•  Symbolic of stresses of
growing up in our
“dangerous” world?
Mythic dimension of Raves
•  Idealized “warrior
model” - military
symbols
(camoflage pants,
abandoned military
bases, etc.)
•  Symbolic of
resistance to
cultural norms?
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Religious dimensions of
Raves
Raves as religious
ritual
•  Turner’s model of
initiation rituals separation,
marginalization, return
•  Turner’s model based on tribal
initiations, this model
has been widely
applied to other
religious rituals (incl.
pilgrimage)
•  Reintegration with
“normal” community
integral to model - do
Raves faciliate this?
Religious dimensions of
Raves
•  Separation - distancing from
mainstream mode via
gathering information (where
will it be?), getting tickets,
supplies, etc.
•  Marginalization - “entering
the soundscape” - you are
not in Kansas anymore,
Toto! - lights, music, location,
combine to create liminal
place/state
•  Return - “coming down” need for come-down rituals,
(after parties, coffee houses,
friend’s house - gradual
return to normal mode
Raves as festival?
•  Religious festivals
usually associated with
some mythic story, date
or place
•  But - elements of
religious festivals are
ends in themselves
(justification for it not
relevant to the
experience of it)
•  Raves as end in
themselves - no mythic
dimension, sacred place,
etc…. Reason for
happening is simply to
happen?
Raves as transgressive?
•  Foundational experience at religious
festival - transcending “normal”
everyday experience to evoke, through
dance, music, pageantry, etc. a
collective euphoria - “collective
effervescence” to use Durkheim’s term
•  Religious festivals break down
individualist, everyday experiences by
mocking, inverting, undermining, etc.
cultural/religious norms.
•  Religious festivals reassert cultural
norms by highlighting the illusory nature
of their opposite.
•  Raves creating “collective
effervescence” - a unity of community
that transcends everyday social status
and roles?
•  Raves inverting cultural norms,
reestablishing them afterwards?
Commitment
•  Defining the self in relation to the
implicitly religious focus understanding oneself as a Raver
•  Understanding oneself in relation to
community - other ravers, global
techno culture
•  Understanding oneself in relation to
the philosophy of raves - PLUR
•  Raves as dependent on commitment
of DJs, organizers, ravers… as
underground events, require
commitment to “come off”
Integrating Foci
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Integrating foci are places, moments, objects,
events, concerns, etc. that transcend
difference and lead to an amalgamation of,
uniting of, overcoming of difference, so that a
new mode of being emerges.
The idea of a Rave as an integrating foci:
–  fostering unity, community through
individual self-expression
–  fostering a way of being that is more
authentic, tribal, primitive, etc. through the
use of technology, technological
symbolism
–  Sharing in a global phenomenon participating in global community accepting of difference of other nations,
cultures, styles, etc. through unique,
transitory experience.
Is community, unity, overcoming of difference
really manifest? The language of Tourists,
Hippies, Ravers reveals status and hierarchy
still exists. But, this is true in religious
contexts also (ie pilgrimage)
Integrating Foci
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The location of a Rave as
an integrating foci:
–  Changing locations as
symbolic of Rave ethic non mainstream, not
mundane, not ordinary
–  Peripheral locations farmland, abandoned
warehouses, etc. - the
“re-enchantment” of
forgotten places
–  Dance floor as integrating
foci - old self left behind,
music, motion, dance,
community, etc. become
new reality
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Other integrating foci
–  Timeframe - from 10pm to unknown
end - dawn, mid-morning,
tomorrow… timelessness
overcoming rigid temporal structure
of daily life
–  “pontiffs” - figures of authority organizers, DJs integrated into
oneness of community
–  Gift transactions - giving (money,
bracelets, candy, water, drugs) as a
symbolic statement of affirmation of
community and participation in it
–  Music - electronica the primary
vector which allows the community
to exist outside the context of the
rave itself
–  Dance - integrating mind, body, spirit
through motion, rhythm, integrating
individual with all other dancers into
community
–  Drugs - ecstasy - transgressive
element that integrates self with
community, ethos of raves
Integrating
Foci
Intensive Concerns, extensive
effects
•  Social expression of
“commitment” - ideology
and symbols that shape an
organic community,
impacting how one views the
wider community and world
•  Raves as having “extensive
effects” - do Ravers try to
change the world?
•  Do raves shape how they
see the world (central
symbols and places?)
•  Do raves change the way
ravers view themselves in
relation to the world?
Are Raves just “like” religion,
or are they religion?
•  Francois Gauthier argues that they
are not just “like” religion - instead he
defines Raves as:
•  “a fragmented, non-institutionalized
religiosity… in which truth and
meaning come from and are judged
on a scale of experience… with their
logic of sacrificial consumption,
excess and communion, raves brew
mythologies of an elsewhere which
illustrate their striving towards the
experiencing of otherness in a society
that markets sameness…”