Starfish EXTENDED : Adrenochrome x Mystify

Extended edit of my article for Starfish Magazine 

Original Published at : https://www.instagram.com/p/C51u8FKotHO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link 

In my too-high-heels I went from the pavement of Eden Quay, past the bouncers, and down the stairs of So Below. The sound of the Dublin night transformed into the sounds of techno coming from further down. Turning right at the cloakroom and going through the last door before the exhibition, the first artwork I met was a sculpture made out of disposable vapes. One part had them submerged in water and the other held them in the shape of a human face. They were in a short hallway area which the Starfish crew and I followed into the main space which was filled with DJs and projections. 

The run on rooms were like the run on monologue of the cyber-dystopic theme. Layers upon layers. Easy to get lost in, literally as well as your mind running away with you in the immersive space. 

Accompanying the techno tunes were projected video art pieces on the wall that pulsed with the beat. Abstract, fiery shapes morphed back and forth into human forms, following the contemporary trend of “glitch aesthetics”. The visions matched the techno and the beat of the blood pumping in the people dancing and sweating and grinning. 

Around the corner were textile sculptures. They seemed transmorphic, white and red abstractions of human bodies that seemed to have melted to the wall from the heat of the party all around. Static yet pulsating with the music.

At this point our group moved into a back corridor room to set up. The lighting became more normal but the music still engulfed us. The fire performers were just finished getting into their Mad-Max-esque costumes as we all crowded in. It was like a different world seeing the back rooms of events like this, bare walls and wires. Even though this room wasn’t curated I could still feel it fitting with the themes of the end of the world, like a secret bunker under the last rave before armageddon. 

We stepped back into the main event space, it really was a full body, full sensory experience.

Lots of people dressed on theme, it was great being at an event where people really embraced it and brought their own interpretations. Outside I saw a guy with circuit board traces painted on his face. 

Beside one of the art projections in the downstairs space was a confessional booth. It was a web of red string where people wrote their confessions which they could attach to it. You could walk all the way around the piece and inside were screens with video art installations showing more confessions and images of a human's eye. One read “I don’t belong here”. This stuck with me because I think I don’t belong in this city. But if the world’s falling apart then why not have a techno dystopia underneath Dublin to escape it. 

Walking around it struck me how everyone seemed to be from different walks of life, uniting under this one experience. It wasn’t just the usual young techno or artsy types. There were people who would have partied like this years ago there dancing along with the young people of the city.

We went back upstairs onto the street outside to watch the opening ceremony fire show. It felt like there were just as many eclectic people gathered around the outside of the venue as there were inside. We did a few street interviews. That whole night I had spontaneously become the person holding the lights for the filming that the team was doing. My arms had their work cut in for them holding up the lighting bar for all of them but it added to the already unique, jam packed vibe of the night. 

At the end of it all I had to pull myself away to get the last Luas home and return to my daylight life. I’d techno playing the whole time home, keeping the good vibes going until the night was done and I was in bed.