I paint fractals by hand to show the computers who's boss. Paintings + Electronic music + Yogamats + Writing.
Rave Culture: Aliens, spaceships and cosmic adventures
You might have noticed that mainstream culture has turned its gaze towards UFOs, aliens, and possible parallel universes in recent years. But as always, ravers are decades, if not eons, ahead. Rave culture is PACKED with references to space travel and aliens and has been so since day one.
In this old pic, I’m wearing a classic space alien tee from the 90s, glowing in the dark (I still have it!). We are at the Silo Bash in Copenhagen. Picture by Jonas.dk.Liquid goes for a slightly darker t-shirt vibe, wearing ghosts in space suits.When it comes to space suits, here’s Drop, going in a completely different sci-fi direction: This silvery garment is less cartoonish and more in the style of ‘Foundation’.
If you don’t know, Foundation is a tv-series based on the novels of Isaac Asimov, chronicling af band of exiles on a journey to rebuild civilization. As such, a great and appropriate choice for Fusion.Some ravers decide to go with a space-referencing name, like Rumpistol. This is Rumpistol himself at the Strøm Festival opening night 2025, after the show, outside Bremen. (The entire band wore space mechanic boiler suits on stage, of course).You can also ink the aliens right onto your body. Here’s a space invader tattoo at Boom, 2022.The space invader crew, next to the mainfloor at Boom – 2022.In psy-culture, the Boom Festival itself is referred to as the ‘mothership’.At Boom’s gigantic main stage, the Dance Temple, described as the festival’s power source and a futuristic portal to the tribal community, the tribal symbolism are mixed with space and alien fantasies (and the wildest high-tech light and sound technology). This is another pic from Boom, 2022.
The entire festival looks like it’s packed with alien species and technology, like this:
Or like this, which looks like the inside of an alien spacecraft:
And here are two actual aliens, popping up at a random spot on Boom and playing some space tunes for the sunset crowd.
Fun time-jump: Here’s a map over the Boom festival in 1997 (this is the centre spread of the 1997 Boom flyer). Notice the alien dj’ing in the middle!
Here’s the Boom Festival lineup anno 1997, with a strong Danish (and UK) presence:
So many fun details here. Like ‘The line up order is not fixed’. I also have a strong feeling that Tristan and James Monro have been to the Boom Festival every single years since this one.
Boom booklet flyer, 1997: Here’s the cosmic front page. “A three day open air psychedelic goa trance extravaganza’. Oh my, has Boom grown since then.The alien imagery in psy-culture is supported by the music’s sound samples from science fiction movies and other similar sources, often about daring cosmic adventures in alternate dimensions, such as “OK, space cadets! Prepare to hurtle through the cosmos!” or “There are hundreds of universes of intelligent energy inside your body”. This is the S.U.N. Festival, 2013.Here are some more psytrancers dancing in front of some more alien technology at Free Earth, 2024.And it’s not just psytrance. As any junglist will know, drum’n’bass and jungle are filled with sounds, rhythms and samples that sound like they origin from outer space. Too many tunes to chose from, from Predator to Satellite Type 2, so let’s just go with Planet Dust by Bad Company. Also: Is this pic from a space ship or just Værkstedet in Christiania? You will never know.Here’s a Jungle Fever flyer (from Copenhagen in the 90s) that has gone completely to space.And here’s another jungle flyer from the 90s, with the classic alien head on front. Check the lineup! Check the entrance price!
And yes, there’s more. Much more:
For the mighty Fusion Festival, the logo and landmark representing the entire festival is a space rocket:
Here’s a collection of Fusion tickets and programmes, featuring ‘Die Rakete’ through the years. ‘Die Rakete’ can be found on posters, websites and printed programmes and serves as a metaphor for the festival as a whole: The marvelous rocket that sends all participants to another universe – once a year, for one week.Here’s the physical (and original) rocket itself, once bronze-colored, on top of one of the Fusion hangars, at Fusion 2012. The rocket, up close, on top of the hangar, at Fusion 2018. Slowly getting filled with stickers.
One of the things I really like about Fusion is their sense of humor. It’s not a very pretentious festival, let’s put it like that. A LOT of Fusion’s festival deco is humorous and playfully absurd. And even though the rocket is the beloved icon of the festival, you can find it in various states across the festival grounds: One year, I saw a large rocket installation at one of the smaller music stages depicting the rocket crashed, half buried in the ground (nose first). Rockets, space ships and submarines: The transportation theme in Fusion’s decorations playfully emphasises the liminal state that festival participants should ideally remain in throughout the week while the rocket flies: Beings-in-transit, in transition between their previous and future states, outside the normal rules of society. In 2018, The Tanzwüste stage had a strong ‘stranded ship’ theme, as you can see in this pic. Be Svendsen is behind the decks, inside the stranded vessel.Components from planes, rockets and spaceships, as well as other means of transport such as hot air balloons, submarines, stranded ships and old, rusty cars overgrown with plants and grass form a prominent part of the festival’s decorations. Here’s a yellow submarine, Fusion 2018. Here’s what the rocket (and the hangar) looked like at Fusion in 2007. Eighteen full years ago. No stairs on the hangars back then!And this is what Turmbühne looked like in 2007 – as seen from the rocket. On a peculiar un-busy afternoon. Obviously, Turmbühne did get massively packed back in 2007, too. So fun to revisit these pictures from back then. Check out how the main tower (to the left in the pic) looks like a half-finished DIY project, wrapped in plastic, but not quite. And how people use the set-up (the wires stretching from the main tower to the deco screens) as clothes lines or coat hangers, LOL.Obviously, Turmbühne still looked magical at night in 2007, even though the daytime look had a bit of a (charming) DIY vibe. I don’t have any proper night time photographs of it, though, because my digital camera back in 2007 simply couldn’t process night time sceneries. So this is all I have.This is what Turmbühne looks like at night with a much better (phone) camera, anno 2025. Look how the tower in the middle of the floor (to the left in this pic) has grown.Another look at what Turmbühne and its tiny DIY tower looked like in 2007 (with Sune in front).And this is what the Turmbühne tower (and the crowds) have grown to now. You can pretty much do what you want at Fusion, but you can’t hang your coats on the Turmbühne deco anymore, LOL. Too high up! (This is 2016, so nine years after the previous photo – and nine years ago. Linear time is weird.).More time travel: This is the Trancefloor, anno 2007! (spot the Danes – there are at least nine in this pic, possibly more).Another pic from the 2007 version of the Fusion Trancefloor. Aaaaaw, everyone’s super young. Spot all the Danes, part II!And here’s what the Trancefloor looks like today. This is from 2024. (Spaceship bonus: If you zoom, you can see a tiny space rocket on a stick, dancing two meters in front of us.)
Yes, the genuine experts bring their own space ships to Fusion:
Here are two expert level space cadets, casually carrying their own space rocket from the camp to the Trancefloor, at Fusion 2025.The space rocket has landed on the Trancefloor, ready for some cosmic action.TIME JUMP! This is what the rocket looked like a year before, in its previous incarnation, on the Trancefloor in 2024.
And this is what the upgraded rocket looks like now. This is at the Sonnendeck, Fusion 2025, the night between Saturday and Sunday. At night, the entire Fusion Festival looks like a strange planet, with flying aliens, otherworldly creatures, glowing planets and glittering stars everywhere. But to be fair, you don’t have to go to Boom, Ozora or Fusion to feel like your eyes have entered a space ship. This is an underground party in a military bunker on the outskirts of Copenhagen.OR you can just close your eyes and float, smiling, into the vast cosmos of your own mind, as Andreas does here at a Rumpistol concert on Refshaleøen.Are we in space? On another planet? Or at an underground party at a secret location outside Copenhagen? Who knows.
For more junglistic sci-fi: Jungle Feelings: The Blade Runner Special – in which I dedicate three full (A4) pages in my6 teenage diary from 1992 to Bladerunner – Director’s Cut.
