Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now)

Welcome to the third edition of "Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now)". The exhibition and party will take place in Lägenheten and on the upstairs dancefloor of Under Bron on the 15th of April. The night starts in Lägenheten from 20:00 and the rest of the venue is open from 22:00.

Participating artists:
Anthony Clair Wagner
Aad de Moy
Artur Malewski
Edith Hammar
Erik Haal
Inga Mauer
Johan Norling
Kliin
Nelson Sullivan
Olia Sosnovskaya
Pablo Mateo
Tony Karlsson

Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now) is an ambulating exhibition and party about subcultural strives towards utopia. The title comes from a musical piece with the same name, produced by D-Shake and one of the anthems to have shaped 90’s rave culture. The party, the rave, the concert or the night club is one of the urban rooms where utopian subcultural ambitions manifest. A room where participants enter a context that can renegotiate, challenge, enhance or question existing norms. Factors such as class, gender, age and race may be set out of play.

All subcultural rooms are not, nor need they be physical however. The cinematic, the literal, the pictorial and the imaginary may also serve as places of experiment, discovery, recreation and safe seclusion. In Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now) we meet art and people that take control over their own narrative and create a room or context defined by themselves. A room for lycanthropes, saints, punks and dancers that have negotiated their own terms of participation, and through the subcultural redefined their identities in relation to those given by normative culture.

A subculture, or a subcultural trait, suggests an exclusion or rejection of general culture through the use of semiotics specific to this context. The use of specific language, apparel and body language lets the member of a subculture communicate its belonging to other likeminded, without revealing said belonging to non-members. Or at will display this belonging as a means to refuse non-members access. Through this practice, the agent creates a utopian space inhabited only by its peers.

The exclusion of general culture from subcultural contexts might not seem constructive, at times it might even seem counter productive. The safe spaces created however, provide a platform for the non-normative traits to be explored, prepared or even weaponised, before returning into general culture.

This project was made possible with support from:
Liljevalchs Hubb
Stockholm Stad
Svenska Institutet
Under Bron