The technicalities are relatively simple, a group meets in an outdoor space to dance together to a pre-prepared techno mix, participants bring headphones and a phone or mp3 player. On a mark, the group presses ‘play’ in unison. The music starts and the group dance together to the (roughly) synchronised beats. The ‘drift’ has no planned destination, or leaders.
The idea and term “techno drift” comes from the work of choreographer, artist, and activist Maria F. Scaroni. Scaroni began began organising drifts in Berlin during the pandemic lockdowns, meeting with the Berlin queer community to enable continued dancing during social distancing in public spaces around the city. Scaroni’s work uses dancing as a way to “reconnect the social bond […] a free technology of ecstasy and a choreographic intervention, offered to survive isolation during Pandemic” (Scaroni, 2020).
In 2023 while living at Braziers Park (an intentional community in South Oxfordshire) I started experimenting with techno-drifts. I had spent the pandemic lock downs in this relatively isolated rural setting – which was usually the site of a number of festivals, and at times I felt a very strong sense of the lack of these events on the land that summer. I also began to think about wanting to dance in the landscape and continue to develop Scaroni’s innovation in a way that offered a collective exploration and ‘drift’ on the land.
Beginning to compile some mixes in order to do so- it became apparent to me that the feel of the land and the community with whom I was dwelling did not feel in step with the music I had arrived there with. This prompted me to begin thinking about the way in which the sonic qualities of the music interact, compliment, or contradict the environment and the perceived affordances, materials and feel of the space. Tracks with reverb that recreate spacious interiors like the interiors of warehouses don’t seem to compliment the forest path in the same way.
I have been exploring the drift in a rural setting since spring/summer 2023. As an exploratory project, I have taken an iterative and responsive approach to the audience, space and atmosphere of the day. I make the final version of the mix that we dance to in the hours before the drift goes out.
Dancing in this way raises questions around how rural and natural spaces are used by dance music culture, and the way in which our perception of environment can be mediated by music, and phenomenon that is more often thought about in relation with urban environments. How we communicate when we can’t hear one another’s bodies.
So far there have been five iterations four at Braziers Park and another on Dartmoor National Park which have variously fatuous titles such as:
The Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research Inaugural Trespasser’s Association Mobile Silent Disco.
My thanks to Braziers Park community, Braziers’ wider community, and the Ratio Club for hosting these experiments and to all the drifters who have come out so far and contributed to the development of the work.
References and further reading
Scaroni, Maria F. (2020) TECHNODRIFT: Maria F. Scaroni. Online at [https://www.allalways.org/technodrift]
Margarita Tsomou. The Techno-Drift. Translation: Chris Cave from German. Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V. Online at [https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/kre/21984025.cfm]
Drayson, H. (2023) The Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research Inaugural Trespasser’s Association Mobile Silent Disco.[artwork]