Rave :
Staging Transgressive Ecstasy
The rave ritual
makes great use of trance and ecstasy practices (namely dance, rythms and
drugs) which are reminiscent of psychedelic happenings in the sixties, as well
as of disco parties and punk concerts of the seventies, among other phenomena.
Thus, a continuity can be quickly drawn from the demand for the creation of
environments which catalyze paroxysm behaviours and altered states of
consciousness. How can this desire for ecstasy and
trance be interpreted ? Does this quest have something to do with
transgression ? For Georges Bataille, transgression is
nowhere as immediate as in the spheres of mysticism, eroticism and
aestheticism. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, without underestimating the
value and importance of the concept of transgression, draws attention, for its
part, on regression. Can transgression and regression be linked in
experience ? By examining these concepts and the experiences which they
each engulf, this article attempts to define a conceptual frame with which an
analysis of the ecstasy and trance cults that are rave parties can be further
developed.