Aliens Are Us: Cosmic Liminality, Remixticism, and Alienation in Psytrance

Abstract

This article examines how popular culture is remixed for the purposes of facilitating mystical experiences within a global electronic dance music culture. In particular, it investigates the sampling of space travel and alien contact narratives within psytrance, whose DJ-producers are like media shamans remixing fragments from cinema, TV series, documentaries, NASA's lunar program and other popular cultural sources for gnostic purposes. I explore ways outer space travel becomes a narrative device for interior travels, the "hero's journey," and how the figure of the alien other allegorizes the potential for the discovery of the self. In the artifice of remixticism, the alien is a device for universal consciousness and self-empowerment, a process I dub alienation.