Dissertation Proposal and Plan

I would like to explore the topic of the free party scene from the past to current times. As my practical work last year was on festival and events photography, I wanted to pursue this idea as I feel I have found something that I am truly passionate about, this subject also has a personal value to me. However due to the current circumstances going on in the world I feel I am going to have trouble in doing so as events such as festivals are cancelled for the time being, perhaps even the foreseeable future. 

Therefore I would like to explore the illegal rave scene - I want to cover topics such as: 

The history of the free party scene

How technology has advanced - back in the day it would be the photographer capturing the rave scene, whereas now it’s the party goers (using mobile phones, posting it on social media), the news and drones.

How the media show the perspective of raves in a negative light, for example exploiting rubbish and fake articles, compared to how it really is and how photographers capture them differently. 

Possibly talk about how free parties have become more common due to the virus as how people still want to attend events - how will events photography evolve due to the current circumstances.

I want to collect articles and imagery from free parties from the past and from current times to contribute to my findings of research. 

 

QUESTION: "The representation of rave culture, how views from inside and outside shape the perception of a social movement"

RESEARCH & ETHICS

I have been carrying out research from a range of sources. I have been using the internet, books, articles and watching videos on youtube and using platforms such as BBC Iplayer to watch documentaries. 

I have been attending galleries when I can: I attended an exhibition in Bristol and found an artist named Denzil Forrester who paints scenes from nightclubs in london and his hometown in Grenada.

 I am going to try and attend more galleries but due to the current circumstances it has become quite difficult. I have been looking for galleries online in the meantime.

I have also been giving friends interviews.  I have been trying to gather information about why people go to free parties to gather an understanding. I have decided that the people’s names are going to be kept confidential, the reason for this is because at the current time we are facing penalties and fines for attending such events, I would not want to get anyone involved in any trouble.

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STRUCTURE 

I have decided to go for a straightforward essay, I was interested in creating a video at first but then I thought for the amount of information I want to include I believe an essay will be more beneficial to me. 

For the structure of my essay I am; 

Firstly  going to describe the history of raves starting from the 80s, when electronic music came to the UK from Chicago, it is said that this was the birth of acid house music and then go on to talk about raves in the 90s

Then I would like to talk about the spiral tribe, a free party sound system that organised parties in the 90s and Seana gavin the photographer who followed them, she has just created a book called SPIRALLED  - it is a documentation of her time following the Spiral Tribe over ten years from 1993 to 2003.

I am going to mention the castle morton rave in particular as this was the rave which inspired the legislation that became the criminal justice act,

Which will then lead me to talk about the 1994 criminal justice and public order act in detail, 

I will then talk about the photographer Matthew Smith as he documented the protests against the bill and the free party scene in the 90s

I then will describe how technology has advanced, for example how people capture the raves using drones and through the use of  mobile phones and social media. 

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• Before in the old days people would wait by phone boxes to find out about the party or hear something on the radio station and use disposable cameras, now it is usually all over a social media platform like Snapchat for example. 

I want to mention the news and how they sometimes show the raves in a negative light and publish fake articles - I am going to carry out thorough research to prove this. 

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Overall I feel like I am on the right track when it comes to my progress of the research I have found.  I am using a range of sources including primary and secondary research by interviewing friends and photographers and using the platforms such as the internet.