Co-sponsored by the Theater & Performance Studies and Gender & Sexuality Workshops:

We welcome fellow graduate student in ethnomusicology Luis-Manuel Garcia, presenting: “Smooth Experience/Rough Experience: Coming Undone and the ‘Night Out’ in Nightclub Scenes in Paris, Chicago, and Berlin.”

Abstract: Luis’ paper focuses on fieldwork done in the “techno” / “minimal” dance music scenes in Paris, Berlin, and Chicago, where partygoers often describe an ideal “night out” in dualistic terms, articulating a desire both for smooth, effortless social interaction and intense, jarring rupture. This smooth/rough dialectic produces a sort of “Coming Undone Lite©,” which sustains the hope that one can come together differently at the end of the night. The paper engages with and diverges from the extant literature on intense experience, including concepts of /jouissance/, limit-experience, and even everyday, ordinary affect.

Bio: Luis-Manuel Garcia (PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology, Department of Music) has conducted focused fieldwork in the “minimal techno” scenes of Chicago, Paris, and Berlin. His dissertation project focuses on intimacy in crowds: the emergence of a sense of intimacy between strangers/acquaintances on the dancefloors of Electronic Dance Music (i.e., “techno,” “house,” etc.) events, as well as the role of music and affect in sustaining this feeling.

https://webshare.uchicago.edu/users/lgarcia/Public/01%20Easy%20Lee.mp3
https://webshare.uchicago.edu/users/lgarcia/Public/01%20Que%20Belle%20Epoque%202006.mp3
https://webshare.uchicago.edu/users/lgarcia/Public/07%20What%20You%20Say%20Is%20More%20Than%20I%20Can%20Say.mp3
https://webshare.uchicago.edu/users/lgarcia/Public/Andruic.mp3

Ethnoise! The Ethnomusicology Workshop
Monday, February 15, 2010
Wieboldt 206