“HI, DO YOU LIKE RAVES?”
When we asked Denver techno-punk producer Pictureplane to perform in the Ace Hotel, there was never a cohesive plan in mind.
The idea was simple: a local business would make gains by affiliating itself with the hip demographic, and we’d get an opportunity to collaborate with Pictureplane on an art project (note: does not involve “putting birds on things”). The details of the performance would take care of themselves, and we’d be there to document its existence.
Later we would find out that the Ace wanted to ditch the video. Once they saw what happened that afternoon, they wanted nothing to do with it.
But the world doesn’t always work that way. When you try to capitalize on the commodity of cool, sometimes it comes out a little rough around the edges. And once you try to neuter that, the meaning is lost.
We had Pictureplane invite random hotel guests to a performance on the 4th floor, and waited to see how things would progress. It played out like some improvised social psychology experiment. What’s your reaction when approached by a stranger? How likely are you to embrace spontaneity? What happens when you spend a few minutes outside the bounds of your own normalcy?
For us, the shoot provided a chance to trek through Pictureplane’s brain – a chaotic network of hyperactive nodes where anarchist techno provides a euphoric dancetrack for the coming apocalypse. The traditional codes of society have all been eroded and scrubbed away, outdated and impractical for our technology-driven way of life.
It’s a place where the fun-loving counterculture of the early ‘90s predominates; where civilization is based on all of the best parts from Home Alone and the music video for “California Love,” and where freedom of expression takes precedence over everything else. It’s a place where all the weird kids are in charge, and they’re not going to compromise – regardless of how uncomfortable they make you feel.
The room is filled with freaks (more accurately, the Galactic Daughters of Passion) dressed in white paintsuits and wigs, masks and glasses, wrestling on the bed, pillowfighting, spraying whipped cream down their throats, and feeding each other raspberries. After watching all the hedonism go down right before their eyes, the crowd begins to get fidgety. Some are eager to participate in the Dionysian affair. Others would rather just stare in amazement, watching it unfold from a safe distance.
Meanwhile, Pictureplane is busy working his grimy trance music over the swarm. His voice is at once charming and filthy, paying homage to the ecstasy-laden croon featured on all your favorite European dance music from 20 years ago. It’s a vocal style that you almost forgot existed, and a style that perfectly encapsulates Pictureplane’s rave-pop aesthetic.
It’s been almost two years since his last official release, but that hasn’t stopped Pictureplane from spewing forth a slew of remixes, singles, and mixtapes in the interim. The sounds vary from imaginative eurotrance to energetic street noise, falling somewhere under the category of dance music for gutterpunks.
On his latest, Thee Negative Slave Mixtape, tracks with titles like “Cyber Climax” and “Beyond Fantasy” are self-explanatory, their uptempo beats creating an atmosphere that merges hypersexual inference and sci-fi rave beats to form a cosmic sound orgy of hedonistic performance art.
Looking back, it’s hard to imagine the Ace shoot turning into anything except exactly that.
Galactic Daughters of Passion
In the video, Galactic Daughters of Passion provided the bed-jumping, whippet-taking, fruit- and vegetable-bearing, audience-wrangling, Pictureplane-tackling performance. They also performed later that night with Pictureplane during his show at Holocene.
“We had discussed [with Pictureplane] that we wanted the video shoot and his show to be ‘healing’ for ourselves and the audience,” GDP explains. “[Afterward], we agreed that somehow we actually felt as if both performances held true to what we set out to do. Healing in a way to create more of a sense of freedom and acceptance.”
GDP is a local, independent and worker-owned dance/theater/comedy/drama cult performance group comprised of Alicia McDaid, Kathleen Keogh, Lena Kassof, and Sarah Johnson (in this iteration).
– Will Giardino
to start downloading tracks.
