This film do show us a paradoxical story: how the exorcism force of this creative movement of the techno music in Detroit and the creation - by each of pioneers - of their independent labels have allowed an underground culture to resonate worldwide. How a creative force, building on new attitudes and meeting the world of technology and electronic communication, has enabled an economic utopia become a reality. How, facing a daily and an unbearable environment, the only way out of these musicians has been to build capacity enabling them to develop creativity and freedom effervescent while maintaining endearing human qualities. How - knowing that these labels now exist for thirty years - their attitude and approach can be an example to many of us. Finally, and also, how to defeat the Detroit city is being reborn.

“CHEESE” is a series of public programs featuring screenings and talks launched alongside the TECHNO WORLDS exhibition. In 1996, Michael, a student from Switzerland, and Will from the UK formed a collective called “CHEESE,” which helped ignite the early development of domestic rave culture in China. During the exhibition, we will screen several documentary films presented as part of the show and invite guests connected to these scenes to share ideas and engage in dialogue.

Ma Haiping stands as one of China’s most influential electronic and independent musicians, a trailblazer who has carved out a distinct space in the global Techno scene. His music is a seamless fusion of Detroit Techno traditions with Sci-Fi-infused, hypnotic soundscapes, crafting deeply immersive and futuristic tracks that captivate both dance floors and deep listeners alike. His impact on the global scene, however, was already in motion years before. In 2013, Ma Haiping made history as the first Chinese producer to release Techno in Detroit—the birthplace of the genre—with his EP The Chinese Connection on Scan 7’s Cratesaves International label. This breakthrough symbolized a cultural bridge between the East and West in Techno, highlighting his deep respect for the genre’s origins while adding his own innovative perspective.

Blake Stevens is a Researcher, PhD Advisor, and Changjiang Chair Professor in the School of Arts at Peking University.

His research extends from the historiography of electronic music and pedagogical applications of laptop improvisation and algorithmic composition to French Baroque opera and eighteenth-century music aesthetics. He has published in the Journal of Musicology, Eighteenth-Century Music, Music and Letters, Word and Music Studies, Musica Docta, the Journal of Music, Technology, and Education, and Performing Arts As High-Impact Practice. His edited book on the pedagogy of electronic music, Teaching Electronic Music: Cultural, Analytical, and Creative Perspectives, appeared in 2022 from Routledge.

In China, he convened the panel “Historiographies of Women in the Sonic Arts” at the International Computer Music Conference (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China, 2023), and delivered a keynote address at the conference “Sounding China in Western Music” on “Figures of Tibetan Buddhism in the Music of Pierre Henry and Éliane Radigue” (Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Shanghai, 2024). He currently co-directs the “Sonic Arts Lab” at Peking University.