[Dancecult-l] secrecy, disappearance & invisibility

[Graham St John]

Good questions -  histories of electronic dance mystery cults and 
secret sonic societies would be fascinating additions to published 
research. My book (manuscrupt now with the publisher) Technomad 
covers  some of this territory. In research for this book ive found 
that questions about what techno dance formations are attempting to 
disappear from or be invisible to (ie. what are they responding to) 
are vital - and discovered that the responsibility is complex; 
ultimately leading to a dynamic theory of counterculture. Multiple 
conditions trigger the the response - the daily grind, aesthetic 
conventions, moral rules, racism, homophobia, anti-dance legislation, 
drug war, and so on and on, and often in combination.

These kinds of histories are important if for nothing else than to 
demonstrate that EDMC is connected with earlier and parallel 
movements whose identity derives from being outside the law, from 
aesthetics and activities of the mind and body which transgress 
legal, moral and coded boundaries. While the outsider might seek to 
"disappear" from official culture, this also implies a confrontation, 
or the possibility of confrontation, with  that culture and its power 
apparatus. Whats interesting for me here is the forms that 
confrontation takes, how the transgression is translated into an 
aesthetic complex (e.g involving music, textile fasions and body 
mods) and an associated outlaw identity which is continually incited 
and reignited by applications of state power. And, of course, those 
with investments in this identification will seek to test the edges 
of that apparatus time and again - in order to maintain a 
distinction, or a disappearance, and so we might get something useful 
from Sarah Thornton's ideas about subcultural capital here, but also 
Hebdige. In this vein I am fascinated by the Spiral Tribe catchcry: 
"When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws are free".

btw - some of the contributions to Steve Redheads collection Rave Off 
deal with "disappearance"

Graham

>hey there d/c:
>
>I am undertaking some focused research concerning rave culture as a secret
>society, including the phenomena of (sub)cultural 'disappearance' -- i.e.
>what it means to be 'underground' -- including the process of
>'becoming-invisible'.
>
>Any texts within the culture -- including journalism, manifestos, tracts,
>blogs -- or analyses in the academic field that link rave/technoculture to
>disappearance, secret societies, becoming-invisible, etc., appreciated.
>
>As I am not a sociologist or ethnographer but a communications scholar in
>philosophy, reports from the field in these and other disciplines would be
>greatly appreciated.
>
>best/
>
>     tobias
>
>ps. yes I am well aware of Bey's writings -- :) -- what would also interest
>me would be people taking them up ...
>
>
>
>tobias c. van Veen -----------++++
>http://www.quadrantcrossing.org --
>McGill Communication & Philosophy
>
>
>
>
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