IASPM Benelux is proud to present POP TALKS 7 (meets UvA Musicology Colloquium Series)
Event Cultures and Meta-liminality from Psytrance to Burning Man
by Graham St John
23 June | 15:30 | room 3.01, University Theatre (University of Amsterdam and online via Zoom)
As affirmed in the time of Corona, “transformation” is a motif integral to event cultures. As observers of ritual have long known, liminality—being in-between or on the threshold—is pivotal to transformation, whether of individuals, societies or cultures. At the same time, researchers of electronic dance movements have long recognised that the socio-sonic aesthetic known as “the vibe” is an archetypically liminal state-of-affairs optimized by design. The presentation draws upon extensive research experience to explore how event-centered movements affect the liminal to effect transformation. Two phenomena will be addressed where event cultures have evolved with transformative intent: psytrance and Burning Man. I discuss how transnational cultural movements orchestrate potential in events augmented by sensory technologies, participatory arts and proliminal design. In doing so, I demonstrate how these event cultures are infused with a conscious sensibility of the threshold, a meta-liminal collision of leisure and religiosity.
Biography. Graham St John, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist specialising in transformational events, movements and figures. A Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield and author of the forthcoming intellectual biography Terence McKenna: The Strange Attractor (MIT Press, 2023), among his nine books are Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT (North Atlantic Books 2015), Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance (Equinox 2012), and an anthology of essays currently edited on McKenna. Graham is Executive Editor of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture. His website is: www.edgecentral.net
Zoom link to join the event online: https://uva-live.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErceispzouHtW4qg3s79QTgzJMSP9CyePH