ABSTRACT
Underground electronic dance music is closer to certain art scenes than to other music genres. This pattern reflects a sociological interaction between aesthetic, sexual, political and intellectual factors that makes certain pockets of independent music more attached to bohemian cosmopolitan urban ecologies than others. The way one understands 'urban ecology' thematizes the influence of the combined aspects of spatial materialities and human-non-human assemblages typically found in cities. The bohemian cartography outlines an urban ecology that affords musical and artistic practices of the underground electronic music scenes. This chapter shows how different aspects of dense metropolitan 'urban ecology' penetrate each other to produce artistic synergies. In making claims about the 'cosmopolitanness' of a given urban ecology, one must also take into account the relative position of the interpreter. The notion of 'urban ecology' allows us to understand the differentiating dynamic and its relational ambiguities, and to reveal both the inspiring features of 'bohemian cartography' and the counter-productive dangers of gentrification.
