A new exhibition at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) maps the Detroit Techno music genre from small Detroit discos to European adoration, and runs until September 25.In “Detroit: Techno City,” on display in the Fox Reading Room, ICA’s curators have tracked the influential dance music scene through photographs, audiovisuals, vintage technology, archive materials — and, of course, the records that were at the heart of the genre, produced by the likes of Juan Atkins, Blake Baxter, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson. All of these objects, which offer a comprehensive overview of the scene, aim to address a question asked by the ICA in a press release: “how a generation was inspired to create a new kind of electronic music that was evidenced in the formative UK compilation ‘Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit,’” a 12-track record that is at the heart of this exhibition.In addition to celebrating the music and characteristic record design that were part of the scene, the exhibition also explores how the genre came to be, and what it was about Detroit in general and Detroit Techno producers in particular that made the city such a productive incubator for this sort of minimalist electronic dance music.This is shown through images taken from “313ONELOVE,” a photographic series and book project by Berlin-based photographer Marie Staggat that portrays both the urban expanses of the city that led to such mechanized, almost factory-sounding music, and portraits of the artists working with what were at the time new electronic sound machines (that now look quaint and ancient in the Reading Room), carving out the future of dance music.“Detroit: Techno City” runs through September 25 at the ICA.
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