TECHNO – An Artistic and Political Laboratory of the Present

Techno is one of the more spectacular and mediatized aspects of contemporary culture. But is it more than mere entertainment, more than just an escape from a world that no ideology can claim to finalize? Like any fashion phenomenon, techno is the product of the human need for experimentation and the necessity to go beyond the limits and forms imposed on human existence. In terms of how it has appropriated technology for festive and aesthetic purposes, the techno movement could be considered as a sort of artistic and political laboratory of the present.

Text by Michel Gaillot. Interviews with Michel Maffesoli, Jean-Luc Nancy.

Michel Gaillot (1964-2020 was a philosopher, art critic and philosophy professor at ESACM (Ecole supérieure d’art de Clermont Métropole). He has also written numerous articles and given conferences in France and abroad on different issues relating to contemporary art and current political though, in particular with regards to “l’être-en-commun” or “being-together” and community.

Michel Maffesoli (born 14 November 1944 in Graissessac, Hérault) is a French sociologist. He is a former pupil of Gilbert Durand and Julien Freund, and an emeritus professor at Paris Descartes University. His work touches upon the issue of community links and the prevalence of “the imaginary” in the everyday life of contemporary societies, through which he contributes to the postmodern paradigm.

Jean-Luc Nancy ( born  1940) French philosopher is most famous for his work on phenomenology and deconstruction. His works  examines community as an idea that has dominated modern thought and traces its relation to concepts of experience, discourse, and the individual. Contrary to popular Western notions of community, Jean-Luc Nancy shows that it is neither a project of fusion nor one of production. Rather, he argues, community can be defined through the political nature of its resistance against immanent power.
He was a professor at the University of Strasbourg and the University of Paris VIII. He was also a visiting professor at Yale University, Brown University, and the University of California, Irvine.