Raving

by McKenzie Wark

What is an art of life for what feels like the end of a world? In Raving McKenzie Wark takes readers into the undisclosed locations of New York’s thriving underground queer and trans rave scene. Techno, first and always a Black music, invites fresh sonic and temporal possibilities for this era of diminishing futures. Raving to techno is an art and a technique at which queer and trans bodies might be particularly adept but which is for anyone who lets the beat seduce them. Extending the rave’s sensations, situations, fog, lasers, drugs, and pounding sound systems onto the page, Wark invokes a trans practice of raving as a timely aesthetic for dancing in the ruins of this collapsing capital.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Transgender, Theory, Art

136 pages, Hardcover

First published March 14, 2023

About the author

McKenzie Wark (she/her) is the author of A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International, and The Beach Beneath the Street, among other books. She teaches at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City.

Reviews

[ניקאָלע · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this. It had been recommended to me as a helpful read (perhaps despite Wark’s explicitly stated intentions with the book) into the religious and spiritual dimensions of queer and trans* rave culture. And it was that. But it also felt politically dangerous in its brevity and frustrating in its offhanded engagement with theory. I’m no opponent of autotheory and autofiction. I love it sometimes. But I think it’s impractical to do deep engagements with theory (and, in another sense, try to articulate the generative and exciting ways theory can marry raving practice) in 86 pages. I was particularly frustrated with Wark’s treatment of Mark Fisher, which, though friendly and constructive, completely failed to cite or back up critiques of his work.

To Wark’s credit, she did preface the entire book by explaining how short-notice and thus necessarily brief (even cursory) the work is. But it still missed the mark, at times, I feel, especially when the going started getting good. But it was certainly as many other reviewers have mentioned an intimate and exciting look into rave subcultures.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I also understand the need to get poetic with it a couple months into HRT but this could have used a little more research and thought

[Leo Espluga · Rating 5 out of 5]

simplemente maravilloso. Viva el tiempo-k

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and delicious.
What a fucking pleasure to read a well written book btw !!
Made me really want to go to a party ofc, but more than that it was good to read a defence of queer trans and Black un-useful pleasure spaces - out of time - space pocket ! - and to have the words to defend that coherently ! Let's go out !

[lille rev · Rating 4 out of 5]

En "coworker" er en person som drar på rave for å snakke om det på jobb mandags morran

En "punisher" er en person som behandler et rave som et sted for sin egen underholdning, bidrar ikke med noe

En "raver" er en person som trenger ravet. Som søker ut K-tid, som trenger ravespace, enlustment og/eller xeno-euphoria. De søker å unngå "coworkers" og "punishers" da disse typene ikke er interessert i ovennevnte ting. En må la seg miste kontroll. Bli knulla av musikken. Hetero cis men klarer ikke det, klarer ikke å danse seg ut av selvbevisstheten, dissosiere ut av maskuliniteten. Det finnes unntak, men de blir ikke sett på som cishet der de danser

Boka ga meg lyst til å dra til Berlin og dissosiere på svette dansegulv. Halte ut minner om de øyeblikkene tidlig på morran, da alle som egentlig ikke vet hvorfor de er på dansegulvet er borte og den virkelige dansingen kan begynne. K-tid. Ravespace. Partialkonneksjoner av dividider. Kall det hva du vil.

Forfatteren er trans dame, og sentrerer rundt technoen og det dissosiative/resosiative ved den dansingen. Som jo er en fasett ved rave av flere. Boken representerer da et begrenset aspekt ved rave. Andre sjangre konstruerer andre fenomenologier. Tenker spesielt på skillet mellom det britiske "hardcore-continuum" og technoen. Der technoen er sexy er hardcore noe annet. Maks energi, maks moro, tull og tøys

[Skye]

kind of giving undergrad levels of half baked tbh

[Marcos · Rating 5 out of 5]

teorizar en medio de un after es de las cosas más lúcidas que he leído

[Octavia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is competent and has style but the writer has an interesting veiwpoint. One that doesnt really leave space for the rest of the boring or “dangerous” people that live and work in Brooklyn and have been living here since before any of these ravers even had the thought to move here…. And she totally lost me from the chapter on raving during COVID. Just goes to show how little us native Brooklynites are worth to these people as long as they get their good time.

[Josh Pendergrass]

To be honest this one didn't really resonate. Normally I would avoid writing a "negative" review and just leave it alone, but the topic, underground dance and electronic music and rave culture, is really important to me.

I agree that the underground music scene should (ideally) be a place where people can connect, and where those who feel marginalized in society can be free to be open and express themselves. But the rave scene as portrayed in this book doesn't feel like that is the case at all. There is an obsession with superficial markers of identity, "oppression", and all the worst aspects of what has come to be referred to as identity politics. There is none of the PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect) that is associated with early raves. It feels like anyone who doesn't fit into very specific identity groups isn't welcome at all at these raves, and if they go it sounds like they will be prejudged based on their identity immediately. It doesn't sound like fun for those who are a part of those specific identity groups (mainly trans people) either - the whole scene comes across as very alienating and lonely in this book.

The author mentioned Instagram a number of times, yet there was no discussion of how social media platforms like Instagram are shaping how we relate to each other and encouraging image based and superficial forms of identity and being.

[Pedro Anjos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful set of thoughts and a first-hand account of raving in New York City, with some insights into a trans woman's experience of it. The author has nuanced thoughts and feelings about what raving is and how it is a necessity for so many, not only an escape but a time and a space that exists autonomously and sustains the existence of those who 'need' it. She writes in a very unpretentious way - the book feels like an honest and raw expression of those thoughts and feelings, and a very generous one. You don't feel any of the exclusionary ethics that underground rave scenes often generate, rather the author is simply offering a well crafted and honest description of experiences and practices of raving.

Besides having been to many of the parties and venues described, I had a few additional nice feelings reading this because it touched on my memory of one of my last weeks living in NYC when my sister visited and we found the author in a small bookstore in Brooklyn, writing away on her laptop. My sister asked her where she could find this book around town - we tried those places but they didn't have it, so she ended up buying it in Lisbon and then I borrowed it.

I feel like raving now.

[Ying]

i like the soundtrack where othered bodies dance amidst the digital ruins of whatever advanced stage of capitalism we’re cemented in + the way the auto fiction pieces seem to blur my own experience of time, but don’t think this gets us very far in building any kind of real future out of the ruins. yes, raving and electronic music has revolutionary appeal and cranks a window open for us to breathe in the air of a place other than the junkyard of capitalism, but also sometimes a rave is just 10 people in a techno dungeon ragdolling and not looking at each other. i think i just want a real revolution?

[Federico · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feeling. Concerning the personal/autofiction parts, I'm not judging the content but I must admit I did not love the writing. However, I'm impressed by the research behind this essay, the bibliography is wide and very consistent. I also respect and understand the critics that some members of the Brooklyn queer/rave community moved to this publication and I personally don't agree with some instances. Still, it is valuable and important. 3.5 I guess

[Emi Porfiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There is merit in sharing the pessimism. Everyone is experiencing it. Helps us all feel our way through it. A commiseration. An articulation. It makes it okay not to pretend that some big hope is going to save us. It’s about how a person saves herself, inside of this darkness, at the end of the world, by finding some way to exist within it”.

[Sahar Khraibani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enthralling read — a little different from Wark's usual work but I was gripped from the very beginning and taken on a ride into the rave-time continuum. It's the kind of book you want to fill the margins of with your own thoughts. I will absolutely be reading this again!

[Daeonic · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hay mérito en compartir el pesimismo. Todo el mundo lo está experimentando. Nos ayuda a todas a encontrar un camino que lo atraviese. Una conmiseración. Una articulación. Hace que esté bien no fingir que existe una gran esperanza que nos va a salvar. Se trata de cómo una persona se salva a sí misma, dentro de esta oscuridad, en el fin del mundo, encontrando un modo de existir dentro de él"

Y en el epílogo:

"Las luces atraviesan nuestras manos y estómagos: en ese momento y en ese lugar, en esa delicada y finita continuidad fuera del tiempo, todas devoramos el miedo"

Una vez más el (tecno)zen

[Lorna Bo · Rating 5 out of 5]

some of these neologisms are absolutely brilliant - ravespace is a personal favourite

[Sasa Gab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Není to mé první rodeo. K ravu jako praxi jsem se vrátila po dvacetileté pauze. Dojde na matné vzpomínky na rave z osmdesátek a devadesátek, ale mě žádné "kde jsou ty časy" nezajímá. Tohle je příběh o současném nacházení něčeho prchavého. Něčeho, k čemu jsem se vrátila a co se učím s jistou mírou naivity - s otevřeností vůči pošetilosti a poznatkům, které přicházejí, když jeden bloudí.

[Naila Vico · Rating 5 out of 5]

read it in an afternoon, feel like I have to re-read it pero amazing

[Brad Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

im not sure what i was expecting, but this was a strangely detached and anthropological analysis of the culture of techno raves. Wark focuses on the setting and on social relationships / hierarchies rather than the music, which just didn’t quite work for me since… well… what would a rave be without the music? In this sense, i think she fails to fully latch onto perhaps what it is about the specific music and why people are so drawn to these spaces and situations, although forms of escapism, safety, etc. are highlighted.

Instead, the book mainly focuses on the rave as a means of community and survival for marginalized groups, with an emphasis on freedom of expression. I agree with this lens of understanding, but as someone who is at least somewhat familiar with these events/spaces, i think this is pretty easy to intuit if you’ve ever been to one, even if you can’t put that sense into words as eloquently as Wark can.

The other point that she makes, that this rave practice is becoming increasingly threatened by the mainstream and capitalist forces co-opting it, i found to be much more compelling and to have more depth. Made me think about my role as a cis male in these spaces.

2.75/3

[Naomi Falk · Rating 5 out of 5]

McKenzie Wark's portrait of the contemporary rave scene is a gorgeous work of theory bolstered by lush prose and autofiction. The publication is mainly anchored within Wark's own community in Brooklyn, and I love how seamlessly she pulls from such a breadth of references (Mark Fisher to Jasmine Infiniti). She allows a wide-audience in, including a glossary of fascinating new terminology (or at least new to me), without crossing the boundaries of trust and intimacy that keep the rave community safe. The reader is taken from unnamed/secret locations to recognizable staples to explore how genders, cultures, and identities of all kinds are at play within the context of a rave. It is a source of pride to have raving as practice so deftly defined. Thank you to the Black artists of Chicago and Detroit who started it all—the very heart and soul of our collective work.

[Gastón · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entretenido y atrapante. La autora logra muy bien desarrollar un relato cautivante y sanador respecto a las configuraciones de redes sociales que la conectan y son el soporte. Siento que la teoría apresurada que elabora le da un marco a la rave que a su vez le da un marco de escape y evasión de si misma pero que también configura las redes de soporte y vínculos que la acompañan a lo largo de todo el relato. La teoría no falta y no siento que sea errada pero todo el relato me parece encantador (aún en el último capítulo en el cual siento una pérdida de ritmo) haciendo una disección de las raves pero que en última instancia es dejarse llevar con personas alrededor que entre todas cuidan entre si.

[Michelle P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually like the “half-baked” approach to theories that other reviews balked at because defining “raving” is so totally ungraspable to me. Try as I might to ascribe some meaning or politics to the practice, it just doesn’t stick. It’s means something totally different to everyone, it also actually means nothing and also everything (yeah, sue me!).

But reading this book feels like when a friend takes you by the hand and leads you deep into the rave pit - exhilarating, intimate, cathartic. It ruled :)

[ax · Rating 4 out of 5]

another potent bath of concepts by fellow rave princess mckenzie wark.. one of the truest texts i’ve read on the liminal language and of queer and trans raves — even this book lives in a time and place that i will remember because of how current it feels (!) and the specificity of the scene from which it’s transmitting. which speaking of that shout out to the dj friends mentioned and photographed in print here :)

[Caio Major · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish that goodreads offered half stars, because I would probably give this 4.5. The doomerism bothered me, and the repeated emphasis on the whiteness of her raving circle was very… well it didn’t reflect my raving experiences, is all I’ll say. but overall this is the most eloquent articulation of what I get out of raving that I have found so far.

[Matilde Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love when people who are better writers than you write about things you love. Especially if they have a background in philosophy and make up words that deeply resonate with you even tho they are invented.

[KJ Shepherd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick heady trip--cerebral and corporal and heady and playful all at once. Most of all, it made me miss dancing. Brief but neither insubstantial nor brick-dense.

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oooo how I loved and needed this book

[endrju]

Jasmine Infiniti!

I moj prikaz: https://talas.org.rs/2023/05/18/pisat...

[Manuel Lodeiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. Crea buenos conceptos pero perdí el interés y la fuerza mental para entenderlos en su totalidad por el camino. Me sacaba de honda el rollito autoficción por momentos. Todo el mundo quiere su Testo Yonki y se le quedó en testo yankee (redoble de platillos). Lo releeré en un futuro cuando me vea con más ganas, haya leído otras cosas y el tema me apetezca más

[Giuls )Sometimes highbrow too( · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ci sono alcuni libri che parlano e altri che urlano, ci sono alcuni libri scritti sotto effetto di droga e altri no