Berlin, Bangalore, Shoreditch: Immaterial labour on the dancefloor?

Despite my earlier scepticism about the so-called malaise in dance music, some interesting points are being made in the related discussions about the demography of dance floors and the impact on party dynamics.

One notion seems to be minimal techno as the soundtrack to the nightlife of people working in media/creative industries, with Berlin as the paradigmatic example. Owen Hatherley talks of parts of the city becoming ‘a playground for an international of 'creatives'’ for whom nothing much is at stake: ‘pure pleasure becomes boring after a while, as does the constant low-level tick-tock of a techno designed seemingly for little else than just rolling along’.

Simon Reynolds explores this further, noting that ‘'Creatives' have a different relationship to work and leisure than people who work in manufacturing or the service economy. There is a sense that they are rarely fully at work or fully at leisure. Because their jobs are more fulfilling, there is not the same sense of your-time-is-not-your-own, enforced boredom, nothing like the same alienation’. As a result the explosive energy of the working class weekender packing a week’s worth of living into night’s raving is diffused, ‘because the division between the ecstatically heightened timezone of "party" and normal existence is not as drastically demarcated’.

I think the phenomenon they are describing does have some basis in reality, and is certainly not confined to Berlin or particularly minimal techno. In London the Shoreditch/Hoxton nightlife expansion from later in the 1990s has similarly been viewed as providing a playground for people involved in arts, fashion and media (or who want to be), with no single dominant soundtrack other than a mash up of dance musics with indie and retro-kitsch. I was struck in reading reports of recent protests against dance restrictions in Bangalore by the similar social composition.

I am not sure ‘creatives’ as a description fully covers this global fraction of the dancefloor population. A more useful concept, as developed within the milieu of post-autonomist Marxism, is ‘immaterial labour, that is, labour that produces immaterial products, such as information, knowledges, ideas, images, relationships and affects’ (Negri & Hardt). Those involved in immaterial labour include not just workers in the arts and media industries, but for instance people working in information and communications technology sectors.

I am sceptical of some of the claims made for immaterial labour, particularly the notion that it amounts to a new social subject with some kind of vanguard role in social transformation. Less people may be working in manufacturing and agriculture in the West, but elsewhere in the world this is not the case. And the category of immaterial labour can hide huge social differences between for instance, self-employed professionals with their own companies and call centre workers.

Nevertheless it does seem to at least partially describe a real phenomenon; it does seem true that ‘common conditions of labour in all sectors place new importance on knowledge, information, affective relations, cooperation and communication’ (N&H). Some of the characteristics of immaterial labour are precisely those mentioned by Simon Reynolds; Negri & Hardt identify the tendency ‘to blur the distinction between work time and nonwork time, extending the working day indefinitely to fill all of life’. Immaterial labour tends not to be confined to particular place, the work can move around the world (e.g. to Bangalore) and so can some of the more mobile workers. Although physical working conditions may be less unpleasant than in factories, and wages relatively high for some, immaterial labour is often precarious with short term contracts and commissions – hence perhaps the importance of social networking.

So perhaps immaterial labour on the dancefloor lacks the desparate edginess of the hardcore raver, giving rise to a smoother and increasingly homogenous global clubbing experience, what Mark Fisher has termed ‘nomadalgia: a lack of sense of place, a drift through club or salon spaces that, like franchise coffee bars, could be anywhere’

On the other hand, Negri and Hardt would argue that through a process of globalisation from below, transnational ‘cooperative and communicative networks of social labour’ are emerging, the basis for a more co-operative form of society that is developing within the shell of the old: ‘the future institutional structure of this new society is embedded in the affective, cooperative, and communicative relationships of social production’. If so, then it is in nightclubs as well as in offices that the ‘multitude’ is taking shape.

In the 1990s UK a clear divergence emerged between raving and clubbing, the former characterised by ‘an assertion of the local’ (Reynolds), with the endlessly debated 'Nuum (post-hardcore continuum) strongly associated with a fierce attachment to place (‘it’s a London thing’) and a self-image as an illicit urban underground.

Clubbing on the other hand has often involved a cosmpolitan self-image of being part of a global derritorialized house music/techno culture, linking dancefloors in London, Manchester, Berlin, Detroit, Chicago, Berlin, Manchester and beyond – even if most people didn’t get any further than Ibiza. If we accept Atali’s notion of music prefiguring new social relations, then perhaps house music has prefigured the emergence of immaterial labour, not only in the social composition of the dancers, but in the affective, co-operative, communicative relations of the dancefloor.

At the same time it is arguable that one of the weakness of the immaterial labour as key social subject thesis is that it neglects the needs and experiences of the global poor whose living is precarious in a much more fundamental sense than the journalist or software engineer. Likewise, to the extent that clubbing often excludes the same people it can be characterised not only by a lack of genuine social inclusion (the dancefloor community only extends so far), but by a diluted sense of musical energy - beats with the rough edges smoothed off.

Just following a line of thought here, not completely convinced by the immaterial labour thing - comments welcome as always.

Reference: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2004)

Autonomous Spaces

Extracts from a call for transnational days of action for squats and autonomous spaces:

'On Friday the 4th and Saturday the 5th of April 2008, we call for two days of demonstration, direct action, public information, street-party, squatting... in defence of free spaces and for an anti-capitalist popular culture.

Through these two days, we want to help create more visibility of autonomous spaces and squats as a european/global political movement. We want to develop interconnections and solidarity between squats and autonomous spaces. We want to keep linking our spaces with new people and new struggles, and support the creation of autonomous spaces in places where there has not been a history of this kind of action. We want to build, step by step, our ability to overcome the wave of repression falling on us....

For centuries, people have used squats and autonomous spaces, either urban or rural, to take control of their own lives. They are a tool, a tactic, a practice, and a way for people to live out their struggles. For decades, squat movements across Europe and beyond have fought capitalist development, contributing to local struggles against destruction; providing alternatives to profit-making and consumer culture; running social centres and participatory activities outside of the mainstream economy. Demonstrating the possibilities for self-organising without hierarchy; creating international networks of exchange and solidarity. These networks have changed many lives, breaking out of social control and providing free spaces where people can live outside the norm...

All over Europe, repressive agendas are being pushed by governments. They are attacking long-standing autonomous spaces such as the Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen, Koepi and Rigaer Straße in Berlin, EKH in Vienna and Les Tanneries in Dijon, squatted social centres in London and Amsterdam, Ifanet in Thessaloniki, etc. In France, squats have become a priority target for the police after the anti-CPE movement and the wave of actions and riots that happened during the presidential elections period. In Germany, many autonomous spaces have been searched and attacked before the G8 summit. In Geneva and Barcelona, two old and big squatting "fortresses", the authorities have decided to try to put an end to the movement. Whereas it is still possible to occupy empty buildings in some countries, it has already become a crime in some others. In the countryside, access to land is becoming harder and communes face increasing problems from legislation on hygiene, security and gentrification by the bourgeoisie and tourists. All over Europe, independent cultures are being threatened.

Several months ago we saw running battles in the streets of Copenhagen and actions everywhere in Europe in an explosion of anger at the eviction of the Ungdomshuset social centre. Since then, and with a few other big resistance stories that happened over the last months, we've managed to renew the meaning of international solidarity...

We're calling for an international preparation & coordination meeting on November 24th & 25th 2007, in the autonomous space "Les Tanneries", located in Dijon, France. It is a squatted social centre in a post-industrial environment, occupied since 1998. Thanks to years of struggle against the city council owning the buildings, the project has reached a certain degree of stability. It hosts a collective house, a gig room, a hacklab, a free shop, an infoshop, a collective garden, a library... We hope that many of you will be able to join.

Full call here, contact april2008 at squat dot net for further information.

'Hooliganism in Dancing' before World War One

The Daily Express has been a fount of right wing bile for many years. Here's a classic example of its historic racism, a leading article from just before the First World War bemoaning the popularity of US/African-American dance crazes:

Hooliganism in dancing has established itself in the ballrooms of today, and the whole charm and delight of dancing are threatened. The modern regrettable tendency to introduce any and every kind of eccentric dance into a programme where once the waltz held sway has now reached a point when it calls for protest from all those who do not desire to see any longer the antics of negro minstrels in the ballroom.

These new dances are now seriously taught in London. Certain people of New York indulge in the freak caperings that are known by strange names, and an attempt is being made by certain English hostesses to foist these dances on young people here.

The most outrageous of the latest dances to be imported from New York is the 'Turkey Trot'. It is both ungraceful and disgraceful in the ballroom. There is not one redeeming feature about it.
Its technical description may not sound very dreadful, but the real manner of its dancing can only be judged at sight. The couple wriggle a few steps together, and then take steps sideways, hopping first on one leg and then on the other, after the manner of a lame bird.

The next contortion is a bending of the body downwards with widespread legs so as to look as nearly like a turkey as possible. After that the couples go prowling about in circles round each other. They may make gobbling noises if they like.

Then there is the 'Huggie Bear' dance. The 'Huggie Bear' is capable - as indeed all these dances are - of degenerating into some­thing more than vulgarity. The gestures and the body movements are indecent in them­selves, and this is not surprising when the British public under­stand that these dances are taken direct from the negro dancing rooms and the night clubs of Vienna, Berlin and Budapest.

The 'Huggie Bear' consists of the two dancers hugging each other and performing a slow, irregular dance with the clumsy movements of bears. It is considered good form to growl during the 'Huggie Bear', and in America they make uncouth noises and sing at intervals:

Babe! Come along!
O kid! O kid!
Hug ‘em Hug ‘em
Put your arms around me Babe.

In the passion to model its ballrooms after the pattern of the 'coloured gentlemen's' places of amusement, society is learning the 'Huggie Bear', the 'Argentine tango', and the 'Dandy Dance'. The 'Dandy Dance' begins with the woman dancing along until she is caught up by the man, who draws her along with the familiar cake-walk steps, side by side. Occasionally the woman falls sideways or backwards, as in the 'Apache' dance. Then they gyrate face to face, and presently they change to a species of a waltz, kicking their legs backwards like hens scratching for grain. So it goes on.

Source: The Way we Were, 1900-1914 , based on the files of the Daily Express – James McMillan (William Kimber, London, 1978). The date of the article is not given but it must presumably have been after 1910, as this was the peak pre-war period of novelty dances.

Burns Night

Rituals and other social occasions are defined by different mixtures of particular musics, intoxicants and behaviours. For Burns Night (25 January) the basic recipe is simple enough - whisky, Scottish music , a few Burns poems, maybe some haggis... Still, even with this recipe there's plenty of room for improvisation and last night saw a spontaneous Burns Night at 56a InfoShop - a small radical bookshop tucked behind a food co-op near the Elephant and Castle (South London). The shop has one of the largest stock of anarcho-punk CDs in London, so for music we turned to Oi Polloi's recent album of Scottish Gaelic punk (did play some more traditional Battlefield Band and Corries later). A bottle of Islay Mist was the beverage of choice, shared with anybody passing through provided they were prepared to open the collected poems of Burns at random and read a verse or two. A couple of nice Berliners told us about their place in the former East Berlin, a big ex-squat called Subversive with its own unlicensed bar and dancefloor downstairs. We dreamt of pulling something off like this in South London... maybe one day. Altogether... 'There's threesome reels reels, there's foursome reels, There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man, But the ae best dance ere came to the land Was-the deil's awa wi' the Exciseman'.