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2007 Abstracts Stage 3

David Mancuso and the Loft: War Machines?

David Mancuso, born October 1944, threw the first Loft party “Love Saves the Day” on Valentine’s Day 1970. It practically established what we now know as DJ / club culture through its reinvention of dance culture. My project aims to apply elements of the conceptual machinery developed by Deleuze and Guattari, in their collaborative project of ‘Capitalism and Schizophrenia’, to the history of The Loft and to dance / club culture in general. The possibilities within Capitalism (but also the limitations) outlined by Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy will be explored within this context. The main areas of investigation are the political status, in Deleuze and Guattari’s schemata, of The Loft (its visitors and David Mancuso included) and the actual individual experience of nightclubbing and dancing, as it might be understood in terms of the model of thought which they develop. The compatibility of David Mancuso’s intentions (“Love is the message”) with this theory will also be explored.