Whether there are 30 people in the living room or thousands in the club, sharing the dance floor is a unifying experience. But as strong as this bond is, no two runners-up have the same experience.
Music producer and DJ Carl Craig, a staple on the Detroit art scene, knows this better than anyone. Craig, 53, has spent more than 30 years touring the world and is considered one of the figures in the genre's second wave. The slow weekend for him consisted of two shows. There are usually four, each in a different country.
In "Carl Craig: Party / After Party," which opens this weekend at MOCA's Jeff's Contemporary Warehouse, Craig turns a warehouse into a museum facility and invites the tech-loving and tech-minded. oontz for the party only in his opinion. "Party/Party" is a play on words, a play on ideas, says Craig. The "party" room is actually a dark warehouse lit up with colored lights. After the Party explores the contrast between how Craig and his audience spend their evenings after the club closes.
"I want people to understand that it's not just about fun and games," Craig said. "For me, after a party, going back to the hotel, staying with my little girl, trying to sleep, dealing with all the anger and rage in my head. When it comes to tinnitus, you might be wondering, 'Is this going to go away?'" Do I hear this ringing in my ear?
Although the term is used by the general public as an umbrella term for electronic music, techno has a distinctive sound with a uniform "four-story" rhythmic pattern. Beginning with the work of German electronic group Kraftwerk, a group of black musicians in Detroit has been called an emerging genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Craig decided to create Party / After Party based on his experience as a musician. Commissioned by the Dia Art Foundation, this is Craig's first visual artwork and was shown at Dia Beacon in New York.
Party / Party is based on a soundscape that takes the audience on a journey from one party to the next. The sound, composed by Craig, ranges from frantic techno beats to white noise to echoes that only older listeners can hear. The 30-minute composition is run by software that makes random changes to elements of the sound, such as drum or bass lines. This makes each iteration a slightly different live experience, more like a DJ set.
Although the play is set in a warehouse and has no temporal input, the shift from "party" to "after-party" is evident in tone and situation. The barn is decorated with color-changing LED lights that Craig created in collaboration with artist John Torres. Upon entering the venue, a transparent wall of noise divides the audience into two sides, prompting the audience to bring their own choreography while adjusting to the environment. Ceiling speakers positioned around the space use sound design to direct visitors to what assistant curator Alex Sloan calls "the sweet spot."
The sound that stops at the sweet spot is enough to create vibrations in the body. The distinctive sounds are more audible around the perimeter, engaging in intimacy among those who choose to join the party from the edge of the dance floor. The transition from 'party' to 'party' is finally marked by a burst of natural light illuminated by warehouse skylights programmed to run to the beat of the soundstage.
Los Angeles isn't the most obvious place to "party/party". Craig has no roots here, and the city is often considered a mecca for the genre. But most cities don't have museum warehouses—those with industrial roots that were later used as police warehouses are just begging to be rehabilitated as radical spaces for experimentation and art. This is what makes MOCA the perfect place.
"One room isn't all rooms," says Sloan. “This is a very special site. This place refers to the warehouse parties in Detroit, the industrial places where techno was born.
While the soundscape resembles a Dia Beacon installation, the warehouse architecture explains how materials have evolved to live in MOCA. There are skylights instead of windows. These roof vents must be triggered to open in time with the sound. Changes in light and climate affect how a room is experienced and reproduce the newness of each room.
With its two a.m. breaks and frequent clubbing, Los Angeles is no Detroit or Chicago. Many Los Angeles clubs and venues are owned by ticket conglomerates Goldenvoice and Live Nation and serve as testing grounds for future festival bookings, often leaving little room for artists or lower scenes to participate in the club's ecosystem.
Rather than bring a "party/after party" to a city that has been home to techno clubs for decades, Craig wanted to create a dark space. “LA isn't known for many subway clubs. It's more fun,” he says.
MOCA's Little Tokyo space is a stone's throw from Exchange LA, an EDM-based club with casual techno subs, and 1720, a multi-genre warehouse-style venue. Eight miles away is the Sound, a popular club where techno DJs are booked. But fans of the local genre know that the city's richness doesn't end there. The underground scene is mostly set in elegant warehouses that echo Craig's "party/after-party" vibe.
"Techno is booming in LA. When clubs closed early, we definitely turned the negative into a positive," says Los Angeles-based Michael Frazier, who works as a DJ under the name Money Frazier. Don't shrink.
For San Fernando Valley bahar Kadeem, the man behind Direct Drive's warehouse party, pushing techno parties to the city's outskirts is more than that. He said, "The great thing about the geographic makeup of L.
The installation will be completed by Geffen Contemporary's "Only Party/Party Sessions" in collaboration with Los Angeles-based Insomniac and The Hidden Project. Featured artists include DJ Holographic, Moritz von Oswald, King Brit and Craig.
People miles away on the dance floor will recognize Easter eggs because of the taunts that DJs can throw at excited listeners (trumpets, anyone?). Whether or not the public has ever been to a warehouse, Craig wants people to let go of their expectations as a DJ while still enjoying their "party/party". "People want to show their hands. They want to get the general vibe of a club, and I don't want people to be too generic with people having a 'party/after-party.'"
"My job is always to think outside the box," he adds. “If one risk doesn't work, I try another until it does. It helped me develop not only as a musician, but also as a full-fledged artist.
"Carl Craig: Party / After Party".
Where: Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 n. Central Avenue, Los Angeles
Time : 11: 00-17: 00 Tue-Wed 11: 00-20: 00 Thurs: 11: 00-17: 00 Fri: Sat-Sun 11: 00-18: 00. Runs from April 16 to July 23.
Info: moca.org/visit/geffen-container
Lina Abascal is a culture writer born and raised in Los Angeles. He is the author of the non-fiction book: Non Alone Again: How Bloghouses United the Internet and Dancefloor. A graduate of the California public school system, she holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and a master's degree in creative writing from California State University, Long Beach.
