Electronic Awakening (2012)

Directed by

Andrew Johner

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 27m

Rating

1.5 of 10 from 2 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A documentary that looks at electronic dance music culture as a modern form of spiritual practice. It interviews people who describe life-changing experiences at dance events and considers the idea that the music's repetitive beats may create a shared group consciousness.

contemplativephilosophicalethnographicanalyticalspiritually-curiousmeditativeinterview-driven

What happens

Electronic Awakening is a 2011 American documentary film which investigates the spiritual history of electronic music culture. Told from an ethnographic perspective, the film explores the international Electronic Dance Music (EDM) phenomenon as the re-emergence of shamanic ritual. In addition to interviewing people whose lives were changed by the claimed transcendent experiences on the dancefloor, anthropologist and film's creator AC Johner ponders the cause of this mind-altering effect and suggests that the repetitive, mathematically perfect rhythms and oscillations of EDM have the power to create a communal hive mind. The electronic beatscape propelled by the emergence in the late 1980s and early 1990s of something new and freshly synched. The primary emphasis of the documentary is the deeply spiritual basis of the cultures and practices that have developed around these parties, particularly trance music and the possibilities this spirituality might offer for ravers and the world in general. It is one of the first full-length documentaries to uncover the spiritual and transformational elements of EDM culture as a central theme. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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