Independent Cinema for Everyone

This was a specific, often overlooked, moment in Plymouth’s history when the city bore witness to the
emergence, explosion, and decline of this perceived deviant subculture. Carl Slater’s new work makes parallels
between rave’s Dionysian spirit and suggestion of a ‘higher’ experience and the familiarity of this idea from
gospel worship and the search for salvation. In a peculiar turn of events that is explored in the exhibition, the spiritual home of Plymouth’s rave scene has since become occupied by televangelism.

Crowd.Control is the culmination of a three month residency at Plymouth Arts Centre and the first major outcome from this ongoing project. The exhibition is centred on extensive source material including flyers, first-hand testimonials, live DJ set recordings and digitally transcribed VHS tapes, alongside religious sermons and
spiritual broadcasts. Slater restructures these disparate source materials into an hypnotic collage exploring the
transcendental parallels of these two cultures.

(Part of this exhibition is on the first floor and accessible only by stairs)