Carl Craig: Party/After-Party

Detroit-based techno DJ and producer Carl Craig’s immersive environment, Party/After-Party, 2020, is a visceral sound and somatic experience that evolves with each new iteration. Drawing on Craig’s 30-year career as an internationally touring DJ, Party/After-Party guides visitors sonically through a club night from the perspective of the DJ. Starting in those moments before the crowd arrives and the DJ spins alone, before reaching its crescendo with the party’s pulsing apex, and finally slipping towards the melancholic embrace of the after-party, the work evokes the collective ecstasy and desolation found only on a club dance floor.

Originally commissioned by Dia Art Foundation, this sonic statement responds directly to the architecture of The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and reclaims the former manufacturing site and police storage facility as a space for agency and radical experimentation.

Upon entry, visitors are enveloped by Craig’s soundscape which honors the Black pioneers of techno and electronic music. As one moves through WAREHOUSE techno beats fill the space, the darkness broken intermittently by neon strips, before the skylights above flood everything with natural light, signaling the cycle’s peak and the transition towards “dawn.”

While Party/After-Party was conceived before the COVID-19 pandemic, the context of the past three years makes it impossible to enter the space and not crave the heat and thudding bass of clubs such as Berlin’s iconic Berghain, which Craig has headlined, while also acknowledging the collective loss of communal experiences. Beats build and recede, evolving slightly with every 30-minute evolution so that no two are the same, and at times incorporating references to Craig’s tinnitus, a byproduct of a lifetime of loud music; Party/After-Party is Craig’s invitation into his personal world and the spaces he shapes through sound.

The presentation of Party/After-Party at MOCA is accompanied by a program of live performances both within and in response to the installation. These performances will feature Craig and other artists in a continuation of the collaborations that are at the heart of his practice.

Please be advised that Party/After-Party features low lighting and strobe effects.

The sound levels average 86 decibels, with occasional peaks as high as 97 decibels. Some visitors may wish to use hearing protection.