Electronic music: »Techno Worlds«: hedonism and attitude

About three months ago, on March 13, 2024, something historic happened: Berlin’s techno culture was included in UNESCO’s nationwide list of intangible cultural heritage. But she had already taken the path from the dark cellars of the counterculture into the dazzling limelight of the general cultural canon long before. Two years ago, for example, the Goethe Institute conceived the traveling exhibition “Techno Worlds,” which will tour the world until 2026. After stints in New York, Montreal, Mexico City and Zurich, among others, she can be seen in the Robotron canteen in Dresden since the beginning of May.

In terms of content, the exhibition breaks away from the common understanding of a purely hedonistic night and party culture and instead focuses on artistic practices, the fascination with technological progress and the political and emancipatory achievements associated with techno culture. In addition to information boards, works of art, documentaries, photographs and sound installations are presented.

One of the centerpieces of the exhibition is the sound installation “Objects and Bodies” by the Berlin musician and sound artist Robert Lippok from 2020. Using a low-frequency oscillator, the construction generates a pulse that is transmitted to a cymbal via electrodynamic control transmitters and causes it to sound . Meanwhile, video synthesizers generate visual elements and transmit them to monitors. The result is a multi-dimensional experience that is exhilarating thanks to the stoic repetitiveness of the beat.

The documentary “Sistors with Transistors” points out that, in addition to the often mentioned male artists, women also played a key role in the development of electronic music. It showcases the pioneering work of artists such as Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Suzanne Ciani and many others. These women experimented with electronic sound production as early as the early 20th century, but were soon forgotten due to androcentric music historiography.

A special highlight of “Techno Worlds” is the work “MR-808” by the Dresden music producer and artist Moritz Simon. For this purpose, he has developed a drum robot – based on the TR-808 drum machine from 1980, which was groundbreaking in the development of modern electronic music – which can be programmed by visitors using a tablet. Acoustic elements are triggered by special mechanisms. The purely electronically generated sounds of the TR-808 are, so to speak, retransformed into their original version by Simon’s replica. Last but not least, this makes the close connection between electronic and analog sound elements visible, especially in the early phase of electronic music.

The show in Dresden will be expanded to include a section that highlights the developments in the city’s local techno scene. Especially in the 90s, the city was a global magnet for rave culture – numerous progressive DJs from all over the world repeatedly performed in the Elbe city. Some even spoke of the “Detroit of the East” – in reference to the city in which African-American young people in particular laid the foundation for the development of modern electronic music with their sound experiments in the early 80s.

The development lines of the city’s club landscape become visible in a video projection that shows the new openings and closings of Dresden techno clubs since the fall of the Berlin Wall in rapid succession. The pioneers in this regard were the operators of the “Gasschleuse”, who founded the club in 1992. 23 more clubs followed until 2019, when “object klein a” was founded, which has now developed into the city’s national flagship. Most clubs closed within a few years. Only eight of the 24 clubs survived. Many of them are currently under acute threat to their existence due to the long-term consequences of the pandemic and inflation.

The fact that techno is not only based on escapist hedonism, but also on attitude and willingness to intervene politically is demonstrated by an exhibition station called “(Re-)politicization”. It highlights the actions of the Tolerave network during the development of the Pegida protests from 2014, in which numerous collectives in the city came together. Over time, the alliance organized many parties, demonstrations and the “Toleride” bicycle demonstration. This led to the nearby neighboring town of Freital, where the extreme right is disproportionately strong even by Saxon standards and where there were repeated attacks on refugees. The alliance is still active today and regularly mobilizes for large demonstrations.

It is unfortunate that the exhibits on display are hardly placed in relation to each other. There is a lack of an overarching exhibition concept. This means that the various stations in the exhibition, most of which are well worth seeing, appear to have been designed relatively arbitrarily. Paradoxically, this means that they stand next to each other in a similarly disconnected and fragmented way, which corresponds to the cliché image of techno kids in a drunken state on the dance floor.

The unrenovated Robotron canteen – built in the heart of the city in the 1970s as the location of the information technology company VEB Robotron and today a landmark of the so-called Eastern Modernism – proves to be an extremely suitable ambience with its industrial aesthetics, high ceilings and concrete facades. You briefly feel nostalgic at the thought that, from a purely architectural perspective, this would be the ideal location for the city’s next techno club. There has been a need for this since the announced closure of the Leipzig Institute for the Future, or IfZ, at the end of the year. However, this is not to be expected: it was only in May that the Dresden city council decided that the building would become the property of the Kunsthaus Dresden after extensive renovation.

“Techno Worlds”, until July 28th, Robotron Canteen, Dresden