taking empathy-inducing drugs, such as Ecstasy For example, in her study of
women at raves, Pini points out that ‘raving’ is ‘commonly experienced as involving
a dissolution of the division between self and other and between inner and outer’
(2001:160). The result of this melting of self and other, of subject and subject
(community), or of human and thing (cyborg), of subject and object, produces a
sense of encompassing intimacy with the spirit of the other. In the case of the spirit
being ‘subject-object’, I suggest that the interface between technology and humans
could be regarded as a spiritual tool.
Techno tranceAs a musical genre with a machine aesthetic, techno operates as such an interface,
demanding an active engagement with the idea of technology, especially with that
of ICT. Toop suggests that techno ‘seems to mirror the feeling of non-specific dread
that many people now feel when they think about life, the world, the future; yet it
also expresses a feeling of bliss’ (Toop 1995:89). As a musical genre, techno can be
understood as both futuristic electronica and industrial nostalgia. It is abstract and
foregrounds seemingly otherworldly machine noises rather than producing a
simulated version of acoustic musical instruments. Its speeds, rhythms and
structures can vary widely, from break and broken beat to chill out music. Most
commonly, though, and of importance to the dance events discussed here, is when
its syntagmatic structure is supplied by house music. As a post-disco party music,
house features a repetitive 4/4 beat and a speed of 120 or more beats per minute,
and is mostly produced with electronic instruments. House provides a ritual musical
structure to a broad and inclusive ‘church’, can feature a range of textures, from
electronic to organic, and may support a range of attitudes, from abstract to
humanist, including techno’s machine aesthetic (Rietveld 1998b). Fused with house,
techno becomes a powerful physical and spiritual means of confirming a subjective
relationship with technology.
The term ‘techno’ was initially inspired by Toffler, who in 1980 popularized the
idea of an information-based post-industrial society in The Third Wave. Toffler
suggested that the ‘agents’ of this new era, this new wave, were the ‘Techno Rebels’
(cited in Savage 1996:315), people who would be able to take control over
technology for their own purposes. As a genre, techno utilizes relatively accessible
electronic music technologies, widening the use of ICT to a rebellious DIY
underground resistance; music by the people for the people, in effect a type of
electronic folk music (Rietveld 1998a). The term ‘techno’ and its vague futuristic
implications struck a chord with producer Juan Atkins and his DJ-producer friends
in early 1980s Detroit, as well as with the British music industry and press, who
marketed their techno and the ideas around it to a wider world audience.
In 1980s Detroit, the car industry had vanished and businesses moved out to the
suburbs, leaving this city to rethink its post-industrial future in terms of information
technologies (Sicko 1999). Similar shifts in industrial and urban structures have
occurred elsewhere. In New York, hip-hop spawned the electro genre (with the
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