Dont Expect A ‘typical Club Experience At Techno Fixture Carl Craigs New MOCA Exhibit
Whether it's 30 people in a living room or thousands packed into a club, sharing a dance floor is a bond. But no matter how strong the bond, no two sweaty travelers will have the same experience.
Music producer and DJ Carl Craig, one of the pioneers of the Detroit techno scene, knows this better than anyone. Craig (53) has toured the world for over thirty years and is considered an icon of the genre's second wave. It's two shows on a slow weekend for him. Often four, each in a different country.
In "Carl Craig: Party/After Party," which opens this weekend at Jeff's Contemporary Warehouse MOCA, Craig turns his warehouse party into a museum installation and invites his loved ones. And those who think techno is enough. oontz attitude from him to the party. "Party/Party is a play on words, a play on ideas," says Craig. The "party" room is mostly a dark warehouse with brightly colored lights. "After-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 all fun and games," Craig says. "For me, it was going back to the hotel after a night and living with tinnitus and trying to sleep and deal with the stress and craziness in my head. When I have tinnitus, I'm like, 'Did it ever go away?'
Although the term is used by laymen as an all-encompassing term for electronic music, techno has a unique sound defined by the uniform, rhythmic pattern in "Four Spaces". Based on the creation of the German electronic group Kraftwerk, a group of black musicians in Detroit named the genre that emerged in the late 1970s and early 80s. Craig used his background as a musician to create "Party/After Party". Commissioned by the Dia Art Foundation, this is Craig's first visual artwork and was exhibited at the Dia Beacon in New York.
"Party/After Party" is based on a soundscape that takes the audience on a journey from party to after party. Produced by Craig, the sound varies from hard techno beats to white noise with frequencies only heard by listeners of a certain age group. The 30-minute arrangements are made with software that randomly changes parts of the sound, such as drum or bass lines. This makes each iteration a little different, just like a DJ gig.
The piece takes place in a warehouse, and although there is no time entry, the transition from the "party" section to the "post-party" sections is clear in tone and character. The barn is decorated with color-changing LED lights that Craig created in collaboration with artist John Torres. Upon entering the venue, a transparent canvas wall divides the crowd and encourages passengers to come up with their own choreography, adapting to the environment. Speakers are suspended from the ceiling and stacked throughout the room, using sound design to guide the viewer to what collaborator Alex Sloane calls the "sweet spot."
Standing in a sweet spot, the sound is enough to make his body tremble. All around him from the edge of the dance floor, an increasing number of different voices could be heard sharing secrets from those who chose to join the party. The transition from "party" to "post-party" is punctuated by a soundscape with a final burst of natural light projected onto the barn sky.
Los Angeles is not the most obvious place to "party/after-party". Craig has no roots here, and the city is not generally considered a mecca for the genre. But most cities don't have a museum with a place called a warehouse—a museum with an industrial underbelly, later used as a police warehouse, begging to be renovated as an extreme space for experimentation and discovery. That's what makes MOCA an ideal place.
"This fabric is not for every space," says Sloane. "It's a very special place. It's a Detroit warehouse party, an industrial place where techno was born.
While the soundscape is similar to that installed at Dia Beacon, the warehouse's architecture explains how the room was created to live in MOCA. There are skylights instead of dia windows. This window of light must be equipped to open with sound in time. Changes in light and climate both affect how the work is practiced, and each iteration of the work does something new.
With its 2:00 a.m. curfew and sprawling layout that requires frequent trips to nightclubs, Los Angeles is neither Detroit nor Chicago. Many LA clubs and venues are owned by ticket conglomerates Goldenvoice and Live Nation and serve as testing ground for future festival bookings, often leaving little room for artists or underground scenes to participate in the club ecosystem.
Instead of bringing "party/party" to a town with a decades-old techno club scene, Craig wanted to put it in an obscure location. "LA is not known for many underground clubs. That makes it more interesting," he said.
MOCA's Little Tokyo venue is a stone's throw from Exchange LA, an EDM-leaning club with regular techno subscriptions, and 1720, a warehouse-style multi-genre venue. It is 13 km from The Sound, a popular club that hosts techno DJs. But fans of the local genre know that the city's offerings don't end there. The underground scenes mostly take place in a mouth-watering warehouse very close to Craig's "party/after-party" spirit.
"Techno is booming in Los Angeles," says Los Angeles-based DJ Michael Frazier as Mr. Frazier.
Pushing techno parties to the suburbs is something more for Bahr Kadem, the San Fernando Valley native behind Direct Drive Party. "The great thing about LA's geographic makeup is that despite the long distance between most of the destinations you visit, LA's nightlife is concentrated in the DTLA warehouse district, making vacations easily accessible," he said.
The installation will culminate in party/party session events at MOCA's Geffen Contemporary, in collaboration with festival promoters Insomniac and Los Angeles-based Secret Project. Featured artists include DJ Holographic, Moritz Von Oswald, King Britt and Craig.
Miles around the dance floor will be looking at Easter eggs while savoring the DJ's signature cues tossing to the eager crowd (horns, anyone?). But whether his customers are at a warehouse party or not, Craig wants people to let go of their expectations as a DJ when they experience "Party/Party." "People want to be able to raise their hand," he said, "they want a casual club feel, and I don't want things to be casual with people's 'party/party'."
"My job is always to think outside the box," he said. “If one risk doesn't work, I try another until it does. It has helped me further not only as a musician but as a versatile artist.
"Carl Craig: Party/After Party."
Where: Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles
When: Tuesday to Tuesday, 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, Thursday 11:00 am to 8:00 pm, Thursday 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, Saturday 11:00 am to 6:00 pm to Sunday. . It aired from April 16 to July 23.
Info: moca.org/visit/geffen-contemporary
Lina Abascal is a Los Angeles born and raised cultural writer. He is the author of a music documentary. A graduate of the California public school system, he 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.
