Moderator: madison moore, Brown University
Zoey Greenwald, “TURNING LOOKS AT THE CLUB: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY”
My residency behind the bar at one of Brooklyn’s most popular nightclubs; my best friend’s residency behind the counter at one of Brooklyn’s most popular vintage shops: our jobs, day-in and day-out; the wild glamor we clock into and out of.
The act of turning looks at the club has always been and will always be political. As queer people, nonwhite people, and otherwise people for whom the narcotic glamor of the club and of high fashion are vital to survival—people for whom nightlife may be safer than the daytime— a new internal social structure forms. Informed by drag and queer history, what we wear to the club is still, in constantly new and different ways, important. Whether or not the club acts materially as a place of employment, the club inscribes and situates social politics and hierarchies. The club is a venue for the careful breaking of time—tracks spin into sets, stretching the late-night pliable; drugs open perception wide; dancing renders the body ecstatic. It is exactly this undefined and mutable state which allows queer life to thrive and community to grow. Within this schema, the Look takes on the weight of the Signifier—for which High Fashion is remixed and re-interpolated.But what happens when we, in these spaces, are interpolated into workers? Workers towards the club; towards high fashion? The question becomes: what can we take. No, literally: what can we take from this place. Teflar bag. Floor drugs. Anna Bolina dress. Shots. DJ slot. Gucci corset. Won’t fit me might fit you. Does anybody have a safety pin? A slicing moment of precious, slowed conversation in the greenroom. Ringing in ears. Rick Owens shorts. We’re going to be icons forever. I mean we’re going to be sisters forever.
Carla Vecchiola, “Unyielding Underground: Detroit Techno's Legacy of Resistance, Creativity, and Resilience”
Detroit techno is black music, born out of the city's African American community in the 1980s. Due to both geographic and cultural distance from mainstream music industry benefits, Detroit techno has produced a distinctive sound reflecting the city's unique cultural and historical context. This presentation explores how Detroit's techno scene used music as a form of rebellion and self-expression, laying a foundation for what would be possible in any future electronic music production.
Characterized by its DIY ethos and willingness to experiment, Detroit's music scene has sustained an underground culture valuing creativity and self-expression over commercial success. Examining the intersection of music and social change in Detroit's techno scene highlights music's power as a tool for resistance and innovation, particularly against systemic inequality and marginalization.
From the beginning, Detroit’s techno scene was futuristic. Along with Chicago house, it laid a foundation that influenced all electronic music that would follow. Detroit techno musicians have never remained stagnant and are still pushing electronic music forward. Therefore the original techno musicians simultaneously serve as both legacies and innovators. The current social scene in Detroit mirrors that timeless approach by being intergenerational. To be out in Detroit is to see 50 and 60 year old DJs playing for crowds that are multiracial, sexually diverse, and young and old—including parents who sometimes attend parties with their adult children. Detroit's intergenerational danceclubs offer a unique space for connection and innovation, evoking the strengths of the past while maintaining continuity with the futurism that existed at the start of techno in Detroit.
Young, up-and-coming artists and traditionally overlooked early musicians share commonalities in their efforts to maintain an underground culture. Could this collaboration lead to more equitable compensation for underground artists? This presentation will contribute to the conference themes by highlighting music's power as a tool for creative rebellion and social change, shaping the sound and attitude of a community, and challenging dominant cultural norms.
Isabel Gurrola, “Runways in the Underground: Fashion, Sound, and Identity in Los Angeles Techno Culture”
This presentation explores the intersection of fashion, sound, space, and performance within the contemporary Los Angeles underground rave scene, focusing on a bi-monthly event that hosts a techno runway show. My conceptual framework of sonic spatial resistance is central to this analysis, which integrates Gaye Theresa Johnson’s spatial entitlement, Jose Anguiano’s sonic citizenship within Latino cultural citizenship, and Deborah Vargas’ lo sucio framework. This approach emphasizes the reclamation and repurposing of spaces by marginalized communities, where music fosters identity, resistance, and solidarity. These underground runways are heavily influenced by ballroom culture, where participants challenge and play with gender roles, much like the ballroom houses of queer Black and Latinx communities. Like ballroom culture, this underground runway lets attendees—especially queer men, women, and trans individuals—challenge gender norms through fashion, with queer men in skirts, women’s clothing, and others blending masculine styles. This defiance of binary gender expectations embodies lo sucio, as Vargas (2014) describes it, where genderqueer people of color resist erasure by engaging in non-conforming performances. Spatial entitlement, as defined by Johnson (2013), describes how marginalized groups form new collectivities through imaginative uses of space and technology, fostering belonging and solidarity in spaces such as speakeasies, warehouses, and these techno events. Sonic citizenship, according to Anguiano (2018), highlights how music and sound technology become tools for marginalized communities to assert presence and resist assimilation. The sonic environment of raves, often active from 11 PM to 6 AM, underscores this defiance through music that challenges silence and discipline. In addition, this presentation contributes to Ethnic Studies by illustrating how underground runway raves embody cultural expression, resist dominant power structures, and foster identity through sonic and spatial practices that echo decades of underground culture.
Viet-Hai Huynh, “Cosplaying Dystopia: Techno-Orientalism and Cyberpunk at Raves”
Asian American rave fashion has historically been marked by representations of “Asianess” through forms of popular culture, including anime, Sanrio, and Pokémon. However, Asian American rave fashion has recently shifted towards cyberpunk aesthetics, utilizing its grunge and punk inspirations to incorporate their ethos of refusal, rebellion, and dissatisfaction with society. While cyberpunk subcultures replicate dystopian realities as a form of social commentary, raves have often been conceptualized as spaces of utopianism. My paper asks what it means for the Asian American rave scene to embrace an aesthetics of dystopia through cyberpunk aesthetics when Asian Americans have suffered from the negative tropes of tecno-Orientalism. As David Roh states, Asian Americans have been contained within tropes of techno-Orientalism that frame Asia as a dystopian cyberpunk future (Roh et al. 2015). Scholars of rave culture have also argued that the rave is a less-than-utopic space given its racial exclusions (Garcia-Mispireta 2023). Building on this work, I argue that Asian Americans’ embracing of techno-Orientalism through rave fashion constitutes a refusal of the rave as a utopian space while envisioning new radical futures that embrace messiness and imperfection. Through their conceptualization of the rave as a dystopia, Asian American ravers contest the common perception of the rave as a space of belonging, community, and togetherness, revealing the inadequacy of the ideas of peace and perfection.
