Welcome to the RAVERSE

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RAVERSE90 is a heritage collection that resonates with the early days of electronic music culture and digital art. The collection features artworks created in the early 1990s on multimedia computers, using graphic design software and analogue machines that are now obsolete.

These images were born at the intersection of rave parties and the underground techno movement, forming a powerful and enduring link between digital experimentation and music’s raw energy.

A Living Archive of Digital Art’s Origins

RAVERSE90 is more than just a digital archive; it’s a historical record of the birth of digital culture. Each piece in the collection is a testament to the pioneering spirit of a generation of artists from the European electronic scene.

The works had been unseen for nearly thirty years, now re-emerging as artefacts that reveal the creative ferment of that era. The first drop of the RAVERSE90 collection launched in 2022, with 42 pieces sold. The second drop just landed on Exchange.art, expanding this living archive and offering a fresh look at the bold experiments of the 90s. The collection’s works are exhibited as installations — sculptures of cathode-ray television screens that echo the glow of visuals once projected in clubs and warehouses.

History and Context

To understand RAVERSE90 is to understand a pivotal moment in cultural history. In the early 90s, techno music burst onto the scene in France, drawing from the electronic sounds of Detroit and Chicago. Yet despite its infectious energy and innovative spirit, this underground culture was met with suspicion and hostility from the mainstream.

Cultural institutions dismissed techno as marginal, noisy, and artistically irrelevant. Show organisers resisted hosting rave parties, pushing the scene further underground.

The art market ignored techno’s graphic experiments, seeing them as infinitely reproducible and therefore worthless. The media reinforced negative stereotypes — drugs, violence, deviance — painting the scene as a threat rather than a creative force.

In response, the French techno scene found its voice in illegal raves, often held in abandoned spaces.

These parties became symbols of defiance and unity, offering intense collective experiences away from mainstream disapproval. By the late 90s, this underground energy burst into the mainstream with the global success of French Touch artists like Daft Punk, Air, and Cassius, forcing institutions and the public to reconsider their stance.

RAVERSE90’s Enduring Legacy

RAVERSE90 captures this era of exclusion and creativity, preserving the digital relics of a movement that refused to be ignored. Today, these artworks stand as reminders of techno’s early days and the spirit of experimentation that defined a generation.

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