Phantasmagoria of the Uncanny

In gorgeous language, Leandros Kyriakopoulos lures his readers into the world of the niche experience of substance-induced and music-enhanced rave parties. With robust theoretical focus and deep ethnographic richness this book tells the story of the "rave party" as an anthropological site through its entanglements with ritual, the uncanny, and the spectrality of psytrance. From Goa to the Nestos River water, music, travel and the danger of a police raid set the latter-days psychedelia that this book transverses so fluidly. Such a joy to read!

With Phantasmagoria of the Uncanny: Nomadism, Technique, and Aesthetics in the Psychedelic Rave, Leandros Kyriakopoulos delivers an ethnography of the European festival rave scene that guides the reader along the unravelling edges of late modernity. Expertly parsing and elaborating the technics and aesthetics, places and nonplaces (utopias), and histories and imaginaries of "the psychedelic rave in its festival phantasmagoria," Kyriakopoulos shows how organizers, DJs and ravers collectively construct the uncanny vibes and adventures of the main stage dance floor. Yet, he does not avoid the ambivalence and aporias of this transnational "euphoric nomadism." Fueled by drugs and money and driven by electronic music and its dreamworlds, the rave festival is both nostalgic utopian reach and a "psytrance theater of hallucinations, misunderstandings, and transformations." As the staged performance of a post-counter-cultural enjoyment, the bodily and chemical communions of "psytrance apocalypticism" are more a symptom of late modernity's crises and cul-de-sacs than cause for moral panics. Phantasmagoria of the Uncanny memorably documents an episodic nomadism in search of an experiential exit.

In this fascinating ethnographic study, Kyriakopoulos explores the socio-cultural dimensions of rave and partying in Greece from the 1990's onwards. Drawing on a rich theoretical corpus from cultural studies and sociology, the author engages with issues of subculture, identity, and performance. Resistance, transcendence, as well as phantasmagoria and consumerism are dimensions embedded in rave partying rituals and practices. Rave emerges as a global, nomadic event, bringing together various groups and individuals seeking adventure, utopia, and escapist experiences.