Party 1.1
For a long long time - actually just after I organized an open-air festival on an old russian airport with thousands of people back in 1995 - I am thinking of a party concept that I call "party 2.0". I always had the vision that for a party culture to survive the capitalistic tendencies of mass consumerism and top down media it had to reinvent itself. In some circumstances I see a cross breading of party culture with art and technology "underground" (excuse the 80s wording in here). Namely the hacker conferences around the world and especially the Chaos Communication Camp (happening next year near Berlin again if I am right) the Burning Man "Experience" and the Fusion festival - to an extend.
These are mostly "participatory" events or came from the participatory event background (fusion) where the people attending are more then "punters" staring at their hero dj. They learn, they share and most important they are part of the event making the event more then anything a single party organizer could ever do. So learning is not everyones bussiness and so its also not participation in form of long organized art projects or whatever - a good party 2.0 should let people just flow in and on top what is going on already interact with their environment play around fool around try things explore things - a party as a playground for grown ups - maybe. There are more and more techie things coming out and beeing tested in the wild that make me believe there are numerous people out there looking for the participatory party project that is not only confined to multimillion dollar projects like the burning man or the bigger events that are always hard to organize have to beg for sunshine and are generally maybe to big for a large scale deployment. Making it feasible to use such concepts (that could be largely divergent) in normal small to tiny scale clubs. Interestingly I have always believed the electronic music scene has come from that background. In the early 90s places like e-werk - so still very 80s club oriented - put in computer networks to connect to other clubs or people sitting at home, it was easy if you had a project to approach the club and test it out - the best exhibition of all times for me was still the one time only Chromapark that showed off where clubculture and participation could lead to in the future. Sadly enough things worked out differently and what clubs look like now is exactly what they looked like in the 80s - consume temples trying to make people drunk fast. I personally get very very bored - oh its fine you meet people and can talk and can get drunk fast or whatever but still its always the same you can predict the evening and there is not much to discover personally anymore - things that are unexpected happen less and less often and the after hours are not filled with experience talk - rather with silence. That is one reason why I became a VJ in the first place - because I was bored and wanted to do something at the party.
As a side development we have China who is going through what we have been through in East germany just in high gear - what took East germany at least 10 years China is getting in less then four. Now there not beeing the big electronic scene - another culture that might seem very foreign to Europeans has endured and is prospering - go out with new Chinese friends and they likely take you to a Karaoke bar. You might think about karaoke whatever you like (and my thoughts are about as low as they can go in this regard) but what this really is is participatory event - people are creating the environment they party in and its a mass hit - so yes its masscompatible but only by inspiration from the west (they are so many people there - it doesnīt make any difference if you make a foul out of yourself I guess ;) People donīt try to be the big stars or anything they are just helping everyone to have some fun and in return others are too - they choose the songs the theme of the night - they can make it musically sad or happy or funny and act out. So Karaoke is something that will never be the big hit in good old tight ass germany but other participation is possible and has been proofed possible. Now why is noone integrating that into a party? Why are people afraid to try new concepts - why is even the VJ screen greeted hostile in todays high income club environments? The number one reason is control. People seem to like to be in controlled environments or at least love to create controlled environments with controlled income - everything that would create an individual experience for clubgoers would deter from the "simple" stream of profit for the promoter. Now the ideal thing would be to still generate a profit that would ensure the clubowners/promoters survival and still have an environment full of surprises and individuality. Some Projects crave for such an approach and I do think that technology can help us create that Party 2.0 - immersive individual fun participatory - but the most problematic approach is to get the hurdles in the heads of the promoters cut down nothing that technology can change and a task that even with nonprofit small events seems insurmountable. Its like an indoctruated barrier that says "big PA, stage, Room, disco lighting and maybe VJ screen, big bar - maybe two and maybe maybe a chillout room with some dekoration". This is the party concept that in Berlin at least is enduring since at least 10 years now and that noone is parting with - ok there are cool locations - old factories, forts, swimming pools hotel lobbies and and and but they are fenced of maybe lit up a bit but completely controlled - even strolling around mostly confronts you with a doorkeeper that is 3 times the size of yourself. Creative Rooms (painting on screens, writing a text together - however nonesense it may be, play a light organ with five people) are nonexistent and even something that I would think fits with todays "total control" mentality - creating an immersive space for people to be disconnected from the outside world - is happening only on the most fundamental level (to just not make the room look like a room). At the same time interparty communication has come to almost a standstill - groups stay in groups and interrelated talk - so it still happens - is seldom - and its no surprise as there are not much happenings that relate people together happening in the club. "How much did you drink already?" (substitute any druggy substance in here) is a question often ask and it just shows that you ought to have a combined experience to actually start an enduring conversation. That experience is utterly missing and can only be created through an individual controlled environment that leaves room for surprises and lots of fun.