Area (1999)31.

1, 19-33

Subversive sites: rave culture, spatial politics

and the internet in Sydney,
Australia
Chris Gibson
Division of Geography, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
Email: cgibson@mail.usyd.edu.au

Revised manuscript received 5 October 1998.

Summary ‘Rave’ subcultures have emerged over the last ten years in Sydney, mobilizing
spatial practices and dance styles that originated in Europe and North America. As these
dance cultures diversify and fragment, the internet is increasingly being used as a means of
organizing rave activities, publishing information about artists, Dls and record labels, and,
in more radicalized fragments of the scene, is imbued with meaning-as a ‘web’ to support
illegal appropriations of urban space for dance venues. Hakim Bey‘s ‘Temporary Auton-
omous Zone’, a left-anarchist spatial philosophy, underlies this rhetorical use of new
computer technology, and is central to debates about youth subcultures, music and space,
which I examine throughout this paper.

These nomads chart their courses by strange stars,
which might be luminous clusters of data in cyberspace,
or perhaps hallucinations. Lay down a map of the land;
over that, set a map of political change; over that, a map
of the Net, especially the counter-Net with its emphasis
on clandestine information-flow and logistics-and
finally over all, the 1:l map of the creative imagination,
aesthetics, values. The resultant grid comes to life,
animated by unexpected eddies and surges of energy,
coagulations of light, secret tunnels, surprises. (Bey
1991,107-8)
Introduction
In this paper, I explore a fragment of what has
become known as the ‘rave scene’ in Sydney-the
various spatialities that emerge through the establish-
ment of a ’cultural apparatus’ surrounding illegal
dance parties. In particular, I will develop some
observations of a music subculture that involves a
series of seemingly contradictory spatial processes.
These include the material production of perform-
ance and consumption spaces and more fluid
networks of communication and organization;
relationships between a rhetoric of ‘unique’ social
spaces and their replicability across space; and
tension between strategies of spatial fixity and
fluidity employed as part of an oppositional politics.
Computer-mediated communication-the world
wide web or ’internet’-has been a central tool in
the social construction of space within this mostly
electronic music culture, fulfilling many functions: as
a noticeboard of clues to the location of future
events; as an open space for the creative expression
of composers and visual artists; as an uncensored
outlet for discussions of ravers’ concerns about their
‘scene’; as a shared virtual photo album of past
events; and as an embodiment of the left-anarchist
ideals of the Temporary Autonomous Zone, which
have informed more politicized elements within the
subculture. Rather than provide a complete and
exhaustive overview of the multiplicity of the subtle
cultural politics involved in the social production of
‘rave’ spaces, I hope to provide a starting point for
further discussions of youth cultures and the use of
social space via computer-mediatedcommunication.
Before I come to the role of the internet within
the dance music scene in NSW, I will first briefly
contextualize the subculture within a summary of
contemporary thinking about geography, politics
and music.

ISSN 0004-0894 0 Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 1999
 14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
20 Gibson

A spatial politics of dance wider mainstream, suburban ‘world’-bowling

alleys, train stations, basketball gymnasiums, circus
‘Rave’ culture has emerged as a potent musical tents. Other events, such as those organized by the
practice of the 1990s in many parts of the world, inner-city Vibe Tribe collective in the early to mid-
from the most famous ’hearths’ and sites of produc- 199Os, crystallize debates about the use of public
tion (London, New York, Chicago, Berlin, Detroit) to spaces in Sydney; staging events in the open air in
a range of more peripheral locations: Thailand’s ’full inner-city spaces such as parks and roads.
moon parties’, Israeli ‘trance’ and burgeoning club Youth cultures have attracted increasing attention
scenes in Canada, France, the Czech Republic, New from social scientists since the 197Os, covering a
Zealand and Australia. ’Rave’ culture itself has come range of issues from the production of symbols of
to represent a diverse range of musical variations opposition and protest (Hebdige 1979), gender
and socio-spatial possibilities-in Australia, these relations and fashion (McRobbie 1994), to forma-
fragments replicate those found in other locations, tions of transcontinental African diaspora (Gilroy
encompassing ‘house’, ‘hard house’, ‘happy hard- 1987). Key debates that have surrounded academic
core’, ‘drum and bass’, ‘trance’, ‘speed garage’ and interpretations of youth rituals include tensions
local niches such as ‘doof music (so named to mimic between ’subcultural’ style and the absorption of
the sound of banging, repetitive beats-’doof, doof, these codes (musicalgenres, fashions, language) into
doof, doof.. .’). By using the term ’rave’ throughout mainstream practices, while an ever-increasing, ever-
this article, I refer more specifically to the discrete fragmenting array of musical niches are established.
scenes of informal and irregular underground dance Linear narratives of the cyclical development of ’fads’
parties that have blossomed within New South (first psychedelic, then disco, punk, new wave, etc)
Wales over the last decade. Whilst the field of have been replaced with spatial metaphors, as
electronic dance music has during this time authors attempt to define and distinguish ‘scenes’
expanded to encompass kaleidoscopic mutations of that replicate themselves across geographical con-
sound, and has seeped into many more diverse texts (Straw 1991; Miles 1997). Wild variants and
spaces-from nightclubs, cafes and lounge-rooms to crossblends, from major subcultural styles such as
the music banks of advertising agencies-I am hip hop, reggae, punk, heavy metal, ‘indie’ rock and
mainly concerned with the rave itself-as the central techno, to the specialized niches of acid house,
defining locus of subcultural meaning. Discourses of speed garage, drum and bass, acid jazz, speed metal,
’rave’ remain important in establishing and ensuring dub, industrial techno, ragga, lounge and trance,
the success of events, particularly those perceived to occupy discrete social and material spaces in diverse
be at the radical ‘cutting edge’ of scenes. It is this settings-from major cities in North America and
‘cutting edge’, rather than other more commercially Europe to the ‘exotic’ holiday landscapes of Bali
acceptable forms of dance music, that I discuss at and Ibiza, more peripheral Pacific cities and Asian
length here. With ’raves’, many of the accepted megalopoles such as Bangkok and Jakarta.
norms of Australian rock ’n’ roll scenes have been More broadly, researchers in the field of popular
challenged, with sporadic midnight-to-dawn parties music are increasingly engaging with issues of space
in non-conventional locations, broadcasting repeti- and place within their work-for example, much
tive, electronic beats adorned by the swirling loops already published research attempts to understand
of synthesizers and few vocal and lyrical lines. Rave the relationship between the global and the
culture, and its emphasis on DJs and pre-recorded local-how musical styles that originate in localities
material, has signalled a shift in the codes of authen- are disseminated, understood and reconstructed in
ticity and musical credibility of ‘live’ rock perform- global contexts (Mitchell 1996; Stokes 1994; Lipsitz
ances. Unlike other musical subcultures, where 1994). Questions of place and identity are now
performances take place in formal, regulated becoming key themes in popular music research.
environments (such as concert venues, pubs or disco Nonetheless, these studies often retain a strong
nightclubs), the sites for the performance of under- sociocultural viewpoint, with research centred on
ground raves in big Australian cities such as Sydney important issues such as authenticity and imperial-
have deliberately included spaces normally used for ism, rather than providing an explicit interrogation
industrial and manufacturing productionv-old ware- of the material geographic strategies, spatialities
houses, factories, carpet showrooms-ar spaces and spatial politics that expand out of musical
whose meanings are inverted from those in the arenas. Only in the last five years, with the work of

Figure 1 Rave spatial advertising flyers: Utopia
geographers such as Lily Kong (1995), Susan Smith
(1994) and Andy Leyshon et a/ (1995) have analyses
shifted from the use of spatial ’metaphors’ to
examinations of empirically grounded spatial politics.
Such cases of explicitly spatial strategies are made
credible within dance music scenes-in particular
the subversive appropriation of cracks in urban
landscapes. Ravers have consistently portrayed their
subculture in terms of the specific sites chosen as
venues, and the transformation of these sites into
imaginative landscapes. This is clear with the names
given to events, such as Happy Valley, Field of
Dreams, Bent in Space and Utopia, and with the
common practice of mapping the layouts for rave
venues on flyers and in advertisements as part of
marketing strategies for the event (see Figure 1).
The flyer depicted in Figure 1 illustrates the cen-
trality of spatial discourse within rave scenes in
Sydney (as elsewhere), promising unique, lost para-
dises for dancing-oases, other worlds and fantasy
landscapes constructed within the shells of industrial
capitalism. For many ravers, the success or failure of
a night spent raving depends largely on the effective-
ness of a physical site for creating a particular ’vibe’:
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Rave culture, spatial politics and the internet 21
ravers comment on what the ’space’ was like-how
the various components of a rave space were laid
out, such as the ‘chill-out’ space (in which slower
music and visuals are broadcast to ravers taking a
break from dancing), or different rooms set aside for
different styles and paces of music. As Malbon
(1998) demonstrates with reference to UK club
scenes, the wider spaces of the city through which
ravers pass prior to encounters with dance music
remain crucial. In Sydney, these trajectories are often
linked to public transport networks and well-worn
routes of consumption (from home to the city/
record store/ticket outlet to the party), mapping not
only physical sites for events but also subcultural
networks, geographies of expectation and lines of
subcultural/suburban affiliation (‘happy hardcore’
techno in Sydney’s outer western suburbs around
Blacktown and Liverpool, ’doof‘ in Sydney’s inner-
west, ’house’ within the eastern suburbs and gay
spaces of Darlinghurst, and ‘commercial’ techno
within Sydney’s lower north shore clubs). Within
dance spaces, elements of design remain at the core
of participants’ reminiscences of ’big nights’-how
these scenes for dancing were adorned with various
distractions-lasers, paintings, decorations-or
visited by unusual guest stars such as jugglers and
fire-twirlers. In other words, ravers, like many other
participants across youth cultures, are concerned
with how the imaginative landscape is constructed.
Geography, far from delineating a passive arena
within which subcultural activities take place, is
brought to the fore within the scene.
To understand this element of rave culture in
NSW, we must ask questions about the spatial
strategies employed by ravers themselves, in con-
structing what Grossberg (1 984) calls a ’cultural
apparatus’-not simply musical texts, but a matrix of
sites, routines, networks, practices, events and par-
ticipants that revolve around a musical ‘scene’. For
Grossberg, cultural space can metaphorically be
carved out of wider social space through musical
praxis, through the ’affective alliances’ constructed to
support subcultures, scenes, performance spaces
and events. Despite operating across a number of
heterogeneous geographic contexts, these nodes of
cultural production and consumption are linked
within a:
network of empowerment.. . [where] pleasure is poss-
ible and important for its audiences; it provides the
strategies through which the audience is empowered by
and empowers the musical apparatus. (Crossberg1984,
228)
 14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
22 Gibson

However, whilst Grossberg acknowledges the signifi- be disseminated, renegotiated and played out in
cance of the external ’apparatus’ of a musical scene diverse geographical contexts (Mitchell 1996). As we
(beyond the musical texts themselves), he remains shall see, the use of internet sites as part of the
cautious of proclaiming any real capacity for political process of carving out youth social spaces involves
change resulting from these ‘networks of empower- a range of political strategies and possibilities for
ment‘. Popular music remains eternally transient, subversion.
emerging and dissipating as fashions change and
generations pass-in the end neither providing a
fundamental challenge to, nor even breaking away Fluid spaces
from, dominant mainstream social space: Within the field of subcultural politics that surrounds
rave sites in Sydney, there are a range of spatial
[Rock and roll] celebrates the life of the refugee, the
immigrant with no roots except those they can con- strategies that have emerged as part of the scene’s
struct for themselves at the moment, constructions ‘cultural apparatus’. A central tenet of the ‘mythol-
which will inevitably collapse around them. Rock andogy’ of rave culture involves fluid, transient appro-
priations of material space, agendas that rely on
roll celebrates play-even despairing play-as the only
possibility for survival. (Crossberg 1984, 236) evading spatial fixity, in avoiding the ‘closure’ associ-
ated with many other now-conventional music
Much of the research that has emerged over the last industry tropes. While ‘rock‘ and ‘indie’ scenes often
five years on rave and other youth cultures has mythologize particular performance and pro-
shared Grossberg’s cautionary tones, providing cri- duction sites in a historical context (Abbey Road,
tiques of the discourse of egalitarianism and radical Woodstock, etc), establishing fixed location with rich
emancipation common to dance scenes. Thornton‘s traditions, ‘sounds’ and social norms (codes of
(1995) work on English club cultures explores the behaviour, dress, language), the idealized ‘rave’
networks of subcultural capital that delineate new occupies space momentarily, before such industry
hierarchies, new distinctions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ narratives are solidified.’ Such events rely on the
taste, and pervasive divisions of age and gender. uniqueness of particular sites, and the transient ways
Despite the rhetoric of ‘acceptance’ and ‘freedom’ in which otherwise ordinary spaces are transformed,
that is central to cultural meaning in English dance thus ’recreating opacities and ambiguities-spaces
scenes, rigid and difficult complications (such as of darkness and trickery-in the universe of techno-
issues of class, gender and ethnicity) have not been cratic transparency‘ (de Certeau 1984, 18). This
completely eroded from wider society. These obser- radical sense of spatial fluidity is perhaps most vividly
vations have also informed a rapidly expanding accounted for in the works of left-anarchist Hakim
‘school‘ of research from the Manchester Institute of Bey, whose essay on the Temporary Autonomous
Popular Culture (Redhead 1990; 1993; Redhead et Zone (TAZ) has been influential in shaping a radical
a/ 1997). Members of this school stress the transient, rave practice in NSW, including the incorporation
escapist and often nihilistic politics that underlie the of the internet into subcultural communications
radical ethos of musical subcultures-the ‘death of channels.
raves’ as a focal point for new subversive possibilities
(Reynolds 1997).
However, like much of the wider music literature The Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)
alluded to earlier, these analyses tend to understate
Bey uses the term Temporary Autonomous Zone to
spatial strategies implicit in musical subcultures-
delineate a dissenting radical politics in certain spatial
effective social change can only take place, it seems,
locations, niches, enclaves: vacancies in Western
within a geometric sense of space. The dynamics
social fabric that hold the potential for escape from
(and, more often than not, contradictory politics) of
the panoptic controlling gaze of the State, and
youth cultures established through the appropriation
temporarily play host to alternative social formations
and use of physical spaces and spatial imagery
and bands of radical activists (Herbert 1996). Bey’s
remain underplayed in these studies. Furthermore,
vision of the TAZ is decidedly romantic, with a strong
this body of research remains highly Eurocentric,
emphasis on festival and play as political acts:
offering a particular vision of an English scene in an
encompassing discourse that itself avoids issues of The sixties-style ‘tribal gathering’, the forest enclave of
how musical practices and subcultural meanings can eco-saboteurs, the idyllic M a n e of the neo-pagans,

anarchist conferences, gay faery circles . . . Harlem rent
parties of the twenties, nightclubs, banquets, old-time
libertarian picnics-we should realize that all these are
already ’liberated zones’ of a Sort.. . (Bey 1991, 106)
In precise terms, it is a tendency towards spatial
fluidity, a necessary physical mobility, that provides
the TAZ with its potency-its ability to evade the
asphyxiating control, the spatial ’closure’ of conven-
tional cartography-to ‘hide out’ in the cracks of
contemporary society:
The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage
directly with the State, a guerrilla operation which
liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and
then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen,
before the State can crush it.. . Keep moving the entire
tribe, even if it’s only data in the Web. (Bey 1991, 101)
In Bey’s own cyberpunk discourse, the series of
TAZs that are scattered across space are sustained
through access to ’the Net’-matrices of information
flow that can hitchhike on the back of conventional
communications channels (the postal system, tel-
ephones and now the internet) forming a sort of
subversive ‘counter-Net’ that he refers to simply as
’the web’. Through these channels (or ’Networlds’,
as Harasim 1993 has put it), information about
gatherings, events and political action are dissemi-
nated in ways that may deflate the conventional
power-knowledge nexus of political or scholarly
‘experts’ (Poster 1995).’
It is in the sense of the term ‘web’ that many rave
artists and musical collectives are increasingly organ-
izing their activities around and through computer
technology and information networks such as the
internet, ‘a vast collection of computers linked to
networks within larger networks spanning the globe’
(Kitchin 1998, 385). The computer tools available to
players within Sydney’s electronic music community
include the website locations of organisations, DJs,
labels and events; email communication between
organizers, promoters, activists and participants; and
email discussion groups and posting lists (where
information or comments on current issues are auto-
matically sent to various subscribers). While a range
of internet and email tools are used concurrently by
people within dance subcultures, in this article I
consider only world wide web sites of some organ-
izations, found at particular locations. These involve
public postings of events and feedback from ’the
punters’, while ‘chat’ sites (IRCs), newsgroups and
multi-user domains (MUDS) have been excluded
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Rave culture, spatial politics and the internet 23
from this research (see Bassett 1997 and Neuenfeldt
1996 for a discussion of the methodological and
implications of these computer-mediated
arenas). Often explicitly utilizingthe discourse of
TAZ, sites are constructed and updated by rave
music collectives, artists and participants in Sydney,
including Clan Analogue, Cat@lyst Community
Access Tecknowledgy and Vibe Tribe, attempting to
initiate figurative spaces of empowerment (Special K
19961:
We operate at a grass roots level, taking inspiration from
the young, urban culture from which we originate. Clan
Analogue represents an alternative to the Global Music
Industry and actively seeks to produce and promote
its members without constraint, and ensures .that the
artists’ rights are protected across the wide range of
activities they are involved in . . . Our primary aim is to
increase the communication between our members to
enable them to expand artistically beyond their current
horizons . . . we are about avoiding established ways
of going about things in the music business. (Clan
Analogue 1996)
Bey’s web (in this case, literally, the world wide web)
then forms a sort of support system for a subculture
that relies on utilizing free-floating events that
are momentarily rooted down in physical space in
distinct ways.
The Sydney Party, Rave And Club
Information website
Sydney‘s rave internet community largely revolves
around one particular site, the Sydney Party, Rave
And Club Information Guide (or SPRACI) at
spraci.cia.com.au/, established and maintained by
Sydney DJ Michael MD, which acts as a central point
for other links to artists, organisations, collectives,
labels, discussion pages and subscriber lists. The
SPRACI site, although not the only one of its type, is
directly linked to all major rave organizers, DJ pages
and relevant directories across NSW and further
afield, and thus will be the main focus of this section
(see Figure 2).
In the sense outlined above, the SPRACI constel-
lation of sites could be seen as part of a TAZ
network, being used by ravers to promote events,
distribute phone numbers to gain access to infor-
mation concerning the illegal locations of raves, and
maintain constant feedback and interaction between
the organizing events and those participating in them
(see Figure 2). The internet ‘web‘ partly overcomes
 14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
24 Gibson

Figure 2 Map of SPRACI website and links

traditional problems with advertising, distributing band to be distributed on-line, we have maintained a
material and promoting conventional events. Details web-site for the past three years and keep in constant
can be changed late in the stages of organizing a e-mailwith others like us all over the globe. I feel a great
sense of connectedness as a result. Ours is not a long
dance party, and listed on the particular sites, or
tradition, and it is important to feel that there is a
reconfirmed through the ’0055’ numbers that may
community supporting you. (Crawford, quoted in
be contacted to find out a meeting place or the
Pecotic 1998, 2 5 )
actual location of a rave.3 Costs are low (usually free)
to list a function on the events page, on the ‘cat@lyst
Furthermore, the internet‘s cyberpunk/underground
Subvertizer’ (a left-anarchist activist calendar) or to
discourse suits the subcultural rhetoric of rave cul-
list yourself as a DJ or artist; the organizers, Djs and
ture, with its calls for liberation via sound technology,
composers can usually be reached by personal email
through the ambiguous repetitive bleeps and bass-
through these sites or through SPRACl’s official
lines of techno music. Unlike within other youth
feedback mail site. Some electronic music artists are
subcultures in NSW, such as ’alternative’ genres that
actively engaged in developing new communi-
retain a scepticism towards new technology (and
cations links between producers and consumers via
consequently refrain from subcultural use of internet
websites. Kate Crawford, who, alongside fellow Clan
sites), ravers have been quick to embrace new
Analogue member Nicole Skelty, established the
modes of production, with accessible mixing and
popular drum and bass duo B(if)tek, describes the
sampling technology now downloadable from
function of such links:
’shareware’ internet sites (compare Duance 1997).
I am very much part of the virtual community. I edit a These techniques are currently being explored to
real-time magazine, Internet.au. B(if)tek was the first increase exponentially the potential realm of material

that can be sampled, spliced, overdubbed and mixed
with pre-recorded music (on vinyl, compact disc and
digital audio tape (DAT)). In this regard, electronic
dance music cultures often attempt to embody the
practices first developed in hip hop subcultures in
New York, where conventional music ‘stars’ are
replaced by DJs who mediate fragments of other
musical texts from diverse geographical contexts in
re-combined forms (Toop 1984):
The artefacts of a pop industry premised on the individ-
ual act of purchase and consumption are hijacked and
taken over into the heart of collective rituals of protest
and affirmation which in turn define the boundaries of
the interpretative community. Music is heard socially
and its deepest meanings revealed only in the heart of
this collective, affirmative consumption. (Gilroy 1993,
38)
While the appropriating reach of local techno DJs is
not as wide as those within hip hop communities,
modes of production remain dramatically different
to those in conventional rock formats-an absence
of presentable ’stars’ and ‘personalities’ shifts the
emphasis from personal consumption of recorded
product in the private spaces of the lounge room or
headphones to collective experiences, where the
size and intensity of broadcasting systems (PAS)and
light shows are p a r a m ~ u n t Rave
. ~ subcultures main-
tain an uncompromising allegiance to ’technologi-
cally produced’ sounds, a form of machine music
that privileges the use of ‘synthetic’ instruments,
‘robotic’ rhythms, vastly varying tempos and ‘futur-
istic’ sounds (Harley 1995, 23), mixed seamlessly
amongst other fragments of music to create ‘sets’
rather than performances of individual tracks (see
Tagg 1994 and Hesmondhalgh 1995 for debates
surrounding the consumption of dance music in rave
spaces).
It is no surprise, then, that this liberatory sense of
technological appropriation has spilt over onto the
’Net’-both in terms of subcultural use (most ravers
interviewed are aware of, and regularly use, the
SPRACI and other sites) and in terms of the narra-
tives constructed in the text of websites themselves.
A travel through the SPRACI site to the ‘Artists’
page, and then on to, for example, Non Bossy
Posse (which includes Ian Andrews-a member of
other electronic music collectives Hypnoblob and
Organarchy Sound Systems), reveals a classic text
of the discourse of appropriating technology for
emancipatory purposes, alongside opportunities to
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Rave culture, spatial politics and the internet 25
download excerpts or whole pieces of music freely
from the internet:
Clear the area of the dodge-CORE-rupt neGETive
patriarchal, earth destroying war machine. Technology
should be used for omniversal JOY and E-qualit-E.
INFORMation Trance-mitted through music creates a
new mediA different to that controlled by those who
fill it with obvious and SUBliminal info to oppress
us . . . When SSSSOUND empowering info saturates
the frequencies=====an NRG is let Loose that will set
the stage for sssssssweeping, mutually beneficial
CHANGE. And so with a dodgey van, an array of finger
synched LOOPS,assorted BLEEP chorus calling for local
and globALL (R)evolution. REALIZE EQUALIZE. (Non
Bossy Posse 1997)
The cluster of SPRACI sites also indicate new links
between underground rave cultures and more politi-
cized scenes, in particular Hakim Bey’s brand of left
anarchism (see Figure 2). The liner notes to a recent
Organarchy Sound Systems release Beatz work vol-
ume I , a compilation of underground techno from
Sydney, Byron Bay and Brisbane, suggest the flavour
of these connections:
From Europe to India, Thailand, the Americas and here
in Australia people have emitted various forms of
repetitive rhythms in clubs, warehouses, forests,
beaches and fields . . . Festivals have re-emerged with
self-organized groups and individuals gathering auton-
omously . . . Sounds themselves can now be liberated.
(Various Artists 1997)
The Organarchy Sound Systems releases grew out
of the Newtown-based collective Vibe Tribe, con-
nected through the web to the cat@lyst
Subvertizer-a free listing of radical activities, dem-
onstrations, conferences and gatherings, and
cat@lyst’s own links to other clusters of urban
political sites (for example, environmental lobby
groups, anti-racism campaigners). The cat@lyst web-
site introduces the visitor through Bey’s ideas:
Welcome to the Cat@lyst Mindstation, Sydney. A
Temporary Autonomous Zone created for the free
exchange of information. Low tech grass roots net
access for real people. (cat@lyst 1997)
Recently, these connections have been made more
explicit with the staging of Sydney’s first ‘Reclaim the
Streets’ dance parties, which occupy major road-
ways in the inner city for an afternoon and evening,
throwing car traffic into confusion and filling public

26 Gibson
streets with ‘doof‘ beats. At these events, local rave
promoters and eco-activists combine promotional
efforts on the day: website advertisements and flyers
link political sites with dance music addresses, and
are hyperlinked to other ‘Reclaim the Streets’ pages
in the UK, Berlin and elsewhere. Likewise, ‘doofs’
have accompanied ‘Critical Mass‘ events, where
hundreds of cyclists block city streets to disrupt
commuter traffic, and campaigns against uranium
mining in Aboriginal land.5 In this sense, the links
through internet sites that congregate around
SPRACI not only reflect, but actively inform the
discrete connections between fragments of this
musical subculture and more politicized social
movements-connections previously underplayed in
other analyses of dance cultures (McKay 1996; see
also Thornton 1995; Redhead 1990). Internet sites
have then provided some means of enabling more
fluid connections and movements, not only of ideas,
but of performative bodies, through and into urban
spaces.
Fixed spaces
Yet clearly, such fluidity (expressed spatially, but also
in the absence of ‘stars‘, in slippery uses of pre-
recorded material and in rapidly circulating tastes)
remains part of a web of wider contradictions within
subcultures, exposing dilemmas for the very survival
of these momentary groupings. In the first instance,
internet websites connected to rave cultures in
Sydney can only be accessed by those with appro-
priate computer hardware and skills to navigate in
cyberspace-in part reflecting the exclusivity inher-
ent in youth subcultures (Thornton 1995). As Batty
and Barr (1994) demonstrate, while internet user
rates are increasing at a dramatic rate, the geo-
graphical distribution of hosts mirrors patterns of
wealth, with the United States, Canada, Australia and
Western Europe monopolizing internet access. Simi-
lar inequalities are also evident within these nations:
in Australia, there are only approximately 30 host
computers for every 1000 people (Starrs 1997,201 ),
despite the development of new and cheaper hard-
ware. Clearly, the ‘democracy’ and ’fluidity’ afforded
through such channels is circumscribed by issues of
class and education.
This sense of fluidity also remains in tension with
more subtle spatialities within subcultural groups.
Two British geographers, Halfacree and Kitchin, in
their analysis of the production of regional identities
through the ‘Madchester’ sound in the late 198Os,
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
draw on the work of French sociologist Michel
Maffesoli (1988) to understand the value of spatial
tensions such as these within increasingly frag-
mented consumptive arenas for popular music.
Youth ‘neo-tribes’, heterogeneous groupings of
subcultures with intense identification with styles,
attitudes and genres of music,
constantly struggle to survive because the self-
consciousnessof the community they engender is often
ultimately self-destructive as its limitations become
apparent. (Halfacree and Kitchin 1996, 52-3)
Appropriated rave spaces such as warehouses and
parks reflect Maffesoli‘s notion of ‘lived spaces‘ (as
material manifestations of more metaphorical ‘imag-
ined geographies’), that somehow clamp down
these transient subcultural practices in real space. In
order for any subculture to evade ephemerality, its
neo-tribal sites
need to be material if its associated routines and forms
of behaviour are not to contradict and clash with the
routines and forms of behaviour of a rival imaginative
geography. (Halfacree and Kitchin 1996, 53; see also
Sakolsky and Ho 1995)
Rave cultures are not alone here in embodying
contradictory tendencies towards both spatial mobil-
ity and free-floating markers of style and, conversely,
intense territoriality, as is evident in the material
spaces of the city. These issues, of attachments to
place, and yet going beyond such specificity, emerge
more generally throughout various fields of cultural
politics, from contested gay/lesbian spaces (Murphy
and Watson 1997) to reclamations of ‘the ghetto’ in
American youth cultures (Rose 1994). As Lefebvre
(1 991, 142-3) argues, material sites are ‘a stake, the
locus of projects and actions deployed as specific
strategies, and hence the object of wagers on the
future’. These wagers may be articulated in the more
formal strategies of activist struggles or indigenous
rights movements, yet are also bound up in the social
construction of consumption spaces-in this case
the decisions and preferences of rave organizers and
promoters regarding the sites of events. Ravers do
not simply dance within certain spaces, but construct
those spaces, ’not merely enjoy[ing] a vision, a
contemplation, a spectack-for they act and situate
themselves as active participants’ (Lefebvre 1991,
quoted in Miles 1997, 70).
A small number of other studies, again mostly from
the UK, have made this connection between rave

subcultures and material strategies aimed at radically
appropriating physical space. For example, Wright’s
(1993) study on the Castlemorton Festival in the UK
establishes the links between one major rave and
general debates concerning the use of public space
and transgression. The centrality of local (geo)politi-
cal tensions in this case is particularly vivid given the
oppressive atmosphere generated by the Criminal
Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which makes
convergence in public space in large numbers, and
lengthy broadcasts of music with repetitive beats,
punishable offences. Articles appearing in a range of
explicitly political arenas and in Sydney’s dance
music street-press have also stressed the importance
of raves as potential acts of spatial subversion-a
manifestation of the renaissance of DIY urban social
movements (see, for example, Twist 1995; McKay
1996; Peril 1997).
Nonetheless, as we have seen in Sydney over the
last ten years, these ‘wagers’ remain in tension with a
highly capitalist music industry and the processes of
commercialism that have seen the growth of more
regulated, controlled and, conversely, less radical
environments for the broadcasting of dance/techno
music to large audiences. These nightclubs, often
inscribed with different names on different nights to
give the appearance of heterogeneous spaces, utilize
a standardized floorplan of rave events, with a main
dancefloor, lasers, chill-out rooms, facilities and
so on, whilst remaining a highly controlled, legal
space-constructed in opposition to, yet being
wholly legitimized by, wider society. This process of
normalizing rave activities has recently been exacer-
bated with the NSW Ministry of Police’s (1997) Draft
code of practice for dance parties, which erects a
series of complex planning and regulatory hurdles for
future events to negotiate, and a series of legislative
amendments by the NSW state government that
impact on young people’s use of public space
(Homan 1998). Rather than ’announce’ appropri-
ations of space on the night, the range of approvals
necessary for staging a dance party (from com-
pliance with council by-laws to notifying transport
authorities and organizing insurance) mean that
only larger, more commercial ventures are likely
to succeed (see Ministry of Police 1997; Peril
1997; Homan 1998). This amounts to what
Foucault (1986) described as the construction of
heterotopias-the formation of legitimized spaces
set aside for deviant behaviour-acts such as hedon-
istic dancing and the consumption of illicit drugs are
partially sanctioned, tolerated in these regulated
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Rave culture, spatial politics and the internet 27
sites, even though they are not welcomed in normal
circumstances. In other words, spaces have been
constructed that contain subcultures, and solidify
relationships between subcultures and the
mainstream-thus threatening the perceived radical
edge of the scene.
Thus, a central dilemma of rave subcultures
emerges: in order to evade ephemerality, struggles
of material space and permanence threaten the
very symbolic capital that these practices rely
on-producing spaces that are replicable elides
spontaneity and uniqueness, yet simultaneously
engages with land tenure and regulatory instruments
of the state (Homan 1998; Clarke 1982). Ravers
return to the ’turf‘ of state licensing requirements,
zoning regulations and local council by-laws, ’com-
munities of resistance have to act on terms-and in
the spaces-defined by the state’ (Pile 1997, 12).
It is in the context of such dilemmas that the use of
internet spaces by various actors in the world of
‘raves’ and electronic music has expanded. In order
to transgress scenarios where ‘local resistance’
(deemed ’authentic’ in its opposition to global capital
and the state) is subsumed within state regulation of
the city, means of going beyond simple, ’natural’,
geographical scales are developed, exploring
other possibilities for resistance in the dislocations
through, for example, frictions of distance, the blurring
of boundaries, and hiding and coming out. (Pile 1997,
13; see also Froeling 1997; Wad and Grimes 1997)
Yet these sites also operate in complex ways: in the
first instance, internet resources may act as possible
pathways to organize events, to communicate across
distance and forge new connections between largely
‘apolitical’ musical subcultures and more activist
agendas; yet they also remain emblematic of the
physical spaces in which dance parties have taken
place. Just as material youth social spaces remain
contested, so too are the uses of symbolic spaces of
imagery and computer graphics.
Internet sites as constructed spaces
In addition to the spatially fluid use of the internet
within radical dance scenes in NSW, other organis-
ations and their websites engage in the social con-
struction of rave spaces themselves on internet
pages-sites likened to TAZ spaces within subcul-
tural discourse (see Morley and Robins 1995 for a
discussion of electronic media and social spaces).
 14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
28 Gibson

Some sites act as ’flyers’ of sorts, promoting rave’s

fantasy sites, bizarre spaces, alternative worlds
and subversive worlds, yet websites often remain
after the event, as more permanent reminders of
momentary uses of space.
Quantum Jelly are a small group of organizers who
have staged one-off low-key, low-cost events such as
’Tank Slut’, ’Squishy’ and ‘Presence’-their website
homepage links through to flyers for their events,
and photo galleries of decorations within those rave
spaces (see Figure 3 ) . These decorations are part of
strategies to construct ‘other worlds’ for dance
events; widely used imagery includes surreal artwork,
icons and symbols of exoticized tribalism, through to
science-fiction animation, lasers and sophisticated
lighting systems. Connections are often made
between particular emblems and styles of music:
sci-fi images commonly adorn events with more
industrial, hardcore beats; cartoon images and child-
hood icons are associated with ‘happy hardcore’
sounds (where sped-up vocal lines and synth riffs are
added to the basic drum and bass sound); while
images such as Celtic motifs, in addition to Hindu
characters (most notably depictions of Vishnu and
Krishna), are connected with ’Goa’ trance events
(see also the visual references to Stonehenge in
Figure 1): These images were downloaded from
Quantum Jelly’s ’Tank Slut’ website, and their pres-
ence alongside images of DJs at the turntables and
participants dancing gives some indication of the
importance of spatial representations in promoting
rave events. The extra-musical elements of design
and decor help to determine the success of a
physical space--creating illusions of futuristic sci-fi
voyages, tribalistic encounters and, importantly, non-
regulated, imaginative, anti-Fordist spaces. Yet,
emblems of tradition sourced from heterogeneous
cultures also suggest the embeddedness of social
practices in time and place-signs of permanence in
a subculture reliant on moving beyond place-specific
territoriality. Here, ravers move from ’cyberspace [as]
a spaceless place’ (Ogden 1994, 71 5) into represen- Figure 3 Quantum Jelly ‘Squishy’ wall decorations
tations of material sites, real events that reflect wider Source: Quantum Jelly 1997
social practices (see Garde 1998 for a comparative
study discussing representations of the musical cul-
ture of a remote Aboriginal community in northern organisations, labels, artists, events listings, dis-
Australia). cussion pages and flyers. For example, netsurfers can
The SPRACI ‘web‘ also provides links with other visit the ironically titled ’Federal Space Agency’
rave scenes across physical space, with connections homepage, and event websites connected to
to other similar servers such as the North Coast NSW those going by the name of ’Trance Plant’
Parties, Clubs and Links site (spraci.cia.com.au/ (www.echo.net.au/tranceplant/: see Figure 4). The
nc.html), which then links up with other local internet site as a photo gallery of previous events i s
 14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Rave culture, spatial politics and the internet 29

Figure 4 Trance Plant photo gallery

Source: Federal Space Agency 1997

again demonstrated here-with various scenes from
North Coast raves adding to the construction
of mystical, imagined spaces-resplendent with
actual ‘webs’ of fluorescent string, fire and Eastern
exoticism. These images also make sites more per-
manent in cyberspace-mythologizing past events
through visual images of the spaces they inhabit.
Ironically, in regulatory environments where illegal,
spontaneous events are less likely to be staged, one
of the few examples of permanence available to
ravers can be found in virtual spaces, rather than in
the bricks and mortar of warehouses and event sites.
Conversely, club environments (as opposed to the
transient sites of the idealized rave) have also
invested in website construction, appropriating the
format of more underground rave promotion sites
and accompanying ’cyber’ discourse as promotional
tools. Sublime, Sydney’s largest and most commer-
cially successful club venture, recreates its internal
geography of dance floors, bars and chill-out spaces,
with eleven ’levels’ of access into other pages-from
’the lobby’ through dance spaces, to ’the VIP room’
and ’the rooftop’ (www.sublime.net.au). Here,
subcultural concerns with imaginative spaces and
discourses of technology are incorporated into
sophisticated marketing strategies.
Meanwhile, production houses have also begun to
promote recorded music through the internet using

30 Gibson
Figure 5 Image from Cybersonic Records website
Source: Cybersonic Records 1997
’other-worldly’ images. Exploring another of SPRACl’s
links, labels such as Cybersonic Records have
employed spatial imagery in particular ways through
internet technology, to create images of transformed
worlds or, in their language, to ‘blur the boundaries
between the reality of this world and a disem-
bodied, electronically generated virtual one’ (see
Figure 5). The cover of the recent release
doof@cybersonic.aust.com, which dominates the
Cybersonic Records site, suggests a mix of ‘other-
worldly’ sounds-dark, ominous, underground
currents-yet the extent to which these spatialized
texts are indeed autonomous expressions of an
electronic ‘underground’, or another complex mar-
keting tool in a more commodified niche music
industry, demonstrates the dilemmas of more fluid,
political uses of internet technological resources.
While internet technology may prove an important
means of communication for a range of subversive
alliances, it has already become a major arena for
marketing musical product. Major labels such as
Sony Music, and large retailing chains such as Tower
Records, have invested heavily in internet marketing
and sales, some analysts predicting that, by 2002,
such online purchasing of compact discs will
account for $US1 billion of label revenue, or approxi-
mately 7.5 per cent of the total global market for
recorded music (Economist 1997, 48). Whether or
not dance music products, and in particular record-
ings by Sydney-based artists, is subsumed within
these emerging online markets remains to be seen.
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Conclusion
In this paper, I hope to have established a brief
picture of how the use of the internet can in some
ways transcend the closure associated with the
’Control map’ of the formal nation state that Hakim
Bey refers to, and, indeed, the formal cartographic
gaze that poststructuralist thinkers such as Deleuze
and Guattari are keen to critique through concepts
of spatial flow (see Ferrier 1990). Asserting new
spatialities of festival and playfulness, and new ways
of disseminating information about unregulated
events, the internet here is used as a support mech-
anism for a series of subversive activities in real
physical space, a ‘web‘ that draws on strategies of
spatial fluidity to construct ’other worlds’ and imagi-
nary landscapes for musicians and participants. In
this regard, internet technologies can enable mobil-
ity, ‘a change from one place on the map to another,
or possibly many others‘, as Pile (1997, 29) argues,
’more often than not, it is mobility that has been seen
as radical and transformative’. Simultaneously, rave
subcultures have emerged as significant musical
arenas that are deeply connected to particular sites,
to Maffesoli’s ‘lived spaces’-much more so, it could
be argued, than many mass-consumed musics of the
global industry. These strategies unfold as attempts
to ensure the survival of neo-tribal groupings through
associations with physical sites. In turn, they can offer
an opportunity for young people to ’hide out’ from
wider society, to disappear from sight (but also
remain highly audible through intense and repetitive
beats), and to attempt to restructure social relations
through festival and play.
However, although there is clearly a sense of
neo-tribalism established here through computer-
mediated communications channels, it becomes
more difficult to extrapolate from this argument con-
clusions about more ‘substantial’ emancipation-to
claim that the internet is used in ways that provide
lasting change, construct more democratic social
arenas, or an autonomy that provides the individual
with anything qualitative beyond a greater sense of
geographical ‘scope’. Thus far, the cluster of sites
surrounding SPRACI operate relatively indepen-
dently of the major record companies and promoters
in Australia, and are connected to subcultural prac-
tices that in themselves provide arenas of escape and
diversion from the mundane. The spatialities con-
structed may be able to transcend state-regulated
cartographies, a significant empowering practice in
itself (compare Poster 1995). However, to claim that

rave subcultures and the internet are truly removed
from wider and more pervasive questions of class,
gender, race and access would be dangerously
megatomaniacal (compare Mitchell 1997).The inter-
net, I have suggested here, remains a contested
social space (Warf and Grimes 1997). Its use might
entrench subcultural hierarchies (Bassett 1997;
Thornton 1995), and establish what Batty and Barr
have called ‘a new geography of the rich and poor’,
while remaining emblematic of wider spatial contra-
dictions inherent in subcultures. As Bingham (1 996)
has argued, perhaps more modest claims for cyber-
space can be sustained: in Sydney, internet channels
of communication and electronic music cultures
represent ‘assemblages which, when stabilized, act
to (re)combine (the) bits and pieces of the world
(rewiring it if you like)’ (Bingham 1996, 653). As
dance music scenes in Australia continue to diversify
and fragment, further examinations of their spatial
agendas and the use of spatial imagery remain
crucial, particularly as dance music tropes and inter-
net technologies are appropriated by commercial
interests. As a departure point for this paper, one
major concern remains left unanswered-the extent
to which rave’s Temporary Autonomous Zones can,
after all, remain autonomous.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the advice and input from the
following people: Seb Chan, Diana Zagora, Bec Pagan, Ian
Maxwell, Shane Homan, John Connell, Bill Pritchard, Peta
Hinton, Grant McHerron and, in particular, two anonymous
referees for their constructive criticisms on earlier drafts of
this article.
Notes
1 Since the beginnings of ‘rave’ in the late 1980s,
many spaces in which embryonic dance scenes were
formed have taken on mythologized status as sites of
authenticity. Take, for example, Manchester’s famous
Hacienda club, centre of the ’Madchester’ scene
(Halfacree and Kitchin 1996).
2 Networks of information flow are also interpreted by a
range of other actors, from the music press to fans
themselves, rupturing the exclusivity of the nexus of
power occupied by scholars and politicians.
3 ‘0055’ numbers are information numbers commonly
established to inform potential participants of events, or
meeting places where key information about locations is
distributed on the night.
4 Indeed, major labels have attempted to ’capture’ and
market the popularity of dance music in Sydney, largely
through compilation albums of various 12“ singles mixed
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Rave culture, spatial politics and the internet 31
by overseas and some local DJs.To date, however, sales
of dance music products in Australian retail outlets
remain marginal (Harley 1995).
5 In July 1998, the ’Oms not bombs’ bus was formed by a
Sydney-based electronic music collective, a portable
sound system purchased with benefit event takings. The
sound system has since travelled to various locations
around Australia, including the site of the highly con-
troversial Jabiluka uranium mine in Kakadu National
Park (near Darwin in the Northern Territory), and
unannounced dance parties outside the headquarters
of the mining company Energy Resources of Australia
(ERA), ‘using techno to bring people together’ in political
action (Triple J 1998).
6 ‘Goa trance’ refers to techno sounds that appropriate
Indian music and symbols. The name is derived from a
popular style, usually accompanied by the consumption
of the drug LSD, that itself has mythologized roots in
place-namely the Southern Indian tourist locale, well-
known as part of an international backpacker circuit (see
Chan 1998; Cole and Hannan 1997).
References
Bassett C (1997) ‘Virtually gendered: life in an on-line
world in Gelder K and Thornton S (eds) The subcultures
reader (Routledge, London), 537-50
Batty M and Barr B (1994) ’The electronic frontier:
exploring and mapping cyberspace’ Futures 26(7), 699-
712
Bey H (1991) The temporary autonomous zone: ontological
anarchy, poetic terrorism (Autonomedia, New York)
Bingham N (1996) ‘Object-ions: from technological deter-
minism towards geographies of relations’ Environment
and Planning D: Society and Space 14, 635-57
cat@lyst (1997) ‘Cat@lyst subvertiser’ (www.cat.org.au/
main.htm) Accessed 18 July
Chan S (1998) ’Music(o1ogy) needs a context: re-
interpreting Goa trance’ Perfect Beat 3(4), 93-7
Clan Analogue (1996) ‘What is Clan Analogue?‘
(sysx.apana.org.au/clan/) Accessed 18 July
Clarke M (1982) The politics of pop festivals (Junction,
London)
Cole F and Hannan M (1997) ‘Goa trance’ Perfect Beat
3(3), 1-14
Cybersonic Records (1997) ’Cybersonic records’
(www.ozemail.com.au/matrix12/) Accessed 18 July
De Certeau M (1984) The practice of everyday life
(University of California Press, Berkeley)
Duance K (1997) ’Alternative options: promoting sound in
writing within Sydney’s indie community’ Paper pre-
sented to the International Association for the Study of
Popular Music (Australia and New Zealand) Conference,
’Sites and sounds: popular music in the age of the
internet’, University of Technology, Sydney, 2 1-23 July
Economist (1997) ‘Surf music’ 16 August, 47-8

32 Gibson
Federal Space Agency (1997) ’Trance plant photo gallery’
(www.echo.net.au/tranceplant/fsa.html) Accessed 1 8
July
Ferrier E ( 1 990) ‘Mapping power: cartography and contem-
porary cultural theory’ Antithesis 4(l), 35-49
Foucault M (1 986) ’Of other spaces’ Diacritics 16(1), 22-7
Froeling 0 ( 1 997) ‘The cyberspace war of ink and internet
in Chiapas, Mexico’ Geographical Review 87(2), 291-
307
Garde M (1 998) ‘From a distance: Aboriginal music in the
Maningrida community and on their internet site’ Perfect
Beat 4(1 ), 4-1 8
Gilroy P (1987) There ain’t no black in the union jack
(Unwin Hyman, London)
- ( 1 993) Small acts (Serpent’s Tail, London)
Grossberg L (1 984) ‘Another boring day in paradise: rock
and roll and the empowerment of everyday life’ Popular
Music 4, 225-58
Halfacree K H and Kitchin R M ( 1 996) ‘Madchester rave on:
placing the fragments of popular music’ Area 28(1),
47-55
Harasim L ( 1 993) ’Networlds: networks as social space’ in
Harasim L (ed) Global network;; computers and inter-
national communication (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA),
15-34
Harley R (1995) ‘Acts of volition: volition records, inde-
pendent marketing and the promotion of Australian
techno-pop’ Perfect Beat 2(3), 21-48
Hebdige D (1979) Subculture; the meaning of style
(Methuen, London)
Herbert S (1996) ‘The geopolitics of the police: Foucault,
disciplinary power and the tactics of the Los Angeles
Police Department’ Political Geography 15(1), 47-59
Hesmondhalgh D ( 1 995) ’Technoprophecy: a response to
Tagg’ Popular Music 14, 26 1-3
Homan S ( 1 998) ‘After the law: Sydney’s Phoenician Club
and the death of Anna Wood’ Perfect Beat 4(1), 56-83
Hypnoblob (undated) Alien head step (Hypnosis Records,
Sydney)
Kitchin R (1 998) ’Towards geographies of cyberspace’
Progress in Human Geography 22(3), 385-406
Kong L (1995) ‘Popular music in geographical analyses’
Progress in Homan Geography 19(2), 183-98
Lefebvre H ( 1 991 ) The production of space (Blackwell,
Malden, MA)
Leyshon A, Matless D and Revill G (1995) ‘The place of
music’ Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
20,423-33
Lipsitz G ( 1 994) Dangerous crossroads: popular music,
postmodernism and the poetics of place (Verso, London)
Maffesoli M (1988) Les temps des tribus (MCridiens
Klincksieck, Paris)
Malbon B (1998) ‘The club clubbing: consumption, identity
and the spatial practices of every-night life’ in Skelton T
and Valentine G (eds) Cool places: geographies of youth
cultures (Routledge, London), 266-86
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
McKay G (1996) Senseless acts o f beauty: cultures of
resistance since the sixties (Verso, London)
McRobbie A (1 994) Postmodernism and popular culture
(Routledge, London)
Miles C ( 1 997) ‘Spatial politics: a gendered sense of place’
in Redhead S, Wynne D and O’Connor J (eds) The
clubcultures reader (Blackwell, Oxford), 66-78
Ministry of Police ( 1 997) Draft code of practice for dance
parties (Ministry of Police, Darlinghurst, New South
Wales)
Mitchell T (1996) Popular music and local identity: rock,
pop and rap in Europe and Oceania (Leicester University
Press, Leicester)
- (1 997) ’New Zealand music on the internet-a study of
the NZPOP mailing list’ Perfect Beat 3(2), 77-95
Morley D and Robins K (1995) Spaces of identity: global
media, electronic landscapes and cultural boundaries
(Routledge, London)
Murphy P and Watson S (1997) Surface city: Sydney at the
millennium (Pluto Press, Sydney)
Neuenfeldt K (1 996) ’Inter.view@lnter.net: electrographic-
methods/ethics/practice‘ Southern Review 29(3),
286-94
Non Bossy Posse (1997) “on bossy posse’ (www.
iuma.com/lUMA-2.0/ftmp .../music/Non~Bossy~Posse/)
Accessed 18 July
Ogden M R (1994) ’Politics in a parallel universe: is there a
future for cyberdemocracy?’ Futures 26(7), 71 3-29
Pecotic D ( 1 998) ‘Clan-destine’ Honi Soit 8 September, 25
Peril Y (1 997) ‘Response to the NSW government’s draft
code of practice for dance parties‘ (www.cia.com.au/
peril/links/space/space.htm) Accessed 1 September
Pile S ( 1 997) ’Opposition, political identities and spaces of
resistance’ in Pile S and Keith M (eds) Geographies of
resistance (Routledge, London), 1-32
Poster M (1995) Cyberdemocracy: internet and the public
sphere (University of California, Irvine)
Quantum jelly (1 997) ‘Squishy’ (www.cia.com.au/grant/
quantum.html) Accessed 18 July
Reclaim the Streets (1997) ’Reclaim the streets’ (www.rt-
s.cat.org.au or www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/
361 8/rts.html) Accessed 1 September
Redhead S (1990) The end-of-the-century party: youth
and pop towards 2000 (Manchester University Press,
Manchester)
- (ed) (1993) Rave off (Avebury, Aldershot)
Redhead S, Wynne D and O’Connor J (eds) (1997) The
clubcultures reader (Blackwell, Oxford)
Reynolds S (1997) ’Rave culture: living dream or living
death?’ in Redhead S, Wynne D and O’Connor J (eds)
The clubcultures reader (Blackwell, Oxford), 102-1 1
Rose T ( 1 994) Black noise: rap music and black culture in
contemporary America (Wesleyan University Press,
Hanover)
Sakolsky R and Ho F W (eds) (1995) Sounding off!: music
as subversion/resistance/revolution (Autonomedia, New
York)

Smith S J (1994) ‘Soundscape’ Area 26, 2 3 2 4 0
Special K (1996) ’The body, cryogenesis and the TAZ’
(www.cia.com.au/peril/texts/features/cryo-taz-k. htm)
Accessed 1 September 1997
Starrs P F (1997) ’The sacred, the regional, and the digital’
Geographical Review 87(2), 193-218
Stokes M (ed) (1994) Ethnicity, identity and music: the
musical construction of place (Berg, Oxford)
Straw W (1991) ‘Systems of articulation, logics of change:
communities and scenes in popular music’ Cultural
Studies 15(3), 368-88
Tagg P (1994) ’From refrain to rave: the decline of figure
and the rise of ground’ Popular Music 13, 209-23
Thornton S ( 1 995) Club cultures: music, media and subcul-
tural capital (Polity Press, Cambridge)
Toop D (1984) fhe rap attack: African jive to New York hip
hop (Pluto Press, London)
14754762, 1999, 1, Downloaded from https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.1999.tb00165.x by Newcastle University, Wiley Online Library on [01/02/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Rave culture, spatial politics and the internet 33
Triple J (1998) ‘Oms not bombs’ Morning Show report,
2 September
Twist C (1995) ‘The imaginal rave’ in Sakolsky R and Ho
F W (eds) Sounding off!: music as subversion/resistance/
revolution (Autonomedia, New York), 203-1 0
Various Artists (1997) Beau work volume I : an under-
ground dance compilation from the east coast of Australia
(Organarchy Sound Systems, Sydney)
Vibe Tribe (1997) ’Vibe tribe‘ (www-personal.usyd.edu.au/
sfraser/cat/spraci/vtr.html) Accessed 1 September
Wad B and Grimes J (1997) ’Counterhegemonic discourses
and the internet’ Geographical Review 87(2), 259-74
Wright M A (1993) The rave scene in Britain: a metaphor
for Metanoia‘ Unpublished dissertation, Centre for
Human Ecology, University of Edinburgh