Spaces to Fail in: Negotiating Gender, Community and Technology in Algorave

Abstract

Algorave presents itself as a community that is open and accessible to all, yet historically, there has been a lack of diversity on both the stage and dance floor. Through women-only workshops, mentoring and other efforts at widening participation, the number of women performing at algorave events has increased. Grounded in existing research in feminist technology studies, computing education and gender and electronic music, this article unpacks how techno, social and cultural structures have gendered algorave. These ideas will be elucidated through a series of interviews with women participating in the algorave community, to centrally argue that gender significantly impacts an individual’s ability to engage and interact within the algorave community. I will also consider how live coding, as an embodied techno-social form, is represented at events and hypothesise as to how it could grow further as an inclusive and feminist practice.