McKenzie Wark – Raving

In her book Raving, McKenzie Wark shows the intimate and collective sides of life in the New York trans and queer rave scene. For Wark, rave is not just a dance or club thing: It is much more about self-expression, performative ritual, a literally shared bodily process leading toward catharsis. But it is also a manifesto, a shared practice, and a common resistance against the pressures of consumerism and patriarchal structures. A strongly autofictional approach allows Wark to reveal in detail her purely intimate need to merge with sound, rhythm, and her own body. With great openness, she describes her rave-defined attitude toward sex, drugs, and the search for her own boundaries in the seemingly endless sub-space of the big city. As a result, Raving is an extremely raw, authentic, and plastic portrait that flows with energy, power, and defiance.

Cover artwork by František Fekete, Untitled (from the Queers*Mystics*Ravers* series), 2021, mixed media on paper

McKenzie Wark (*1961, Newcastle, Australia) is a professor of media and cultural studies at the New School in New York. Her best-known books include Hacker Manifesto (2006), about the decommodification of the Internet, and Reverse Cowgirl (2020), in which she describes her experiences with late transition. Her research interests include critical theory, media theory, and philosophy with an overlap into cyberculture.