Volvox: The techno firebrand raised in the rave
On entering Room 1 at the former factory building of E1 in East London, one thing is immediately striking. It’s 2am — the clocks have been pushed forward due to daylight saving — it’s day three of the inaugural Re-Textured Festival, and Ariana Paoletti, aka Volvox, is captivating a crowd. For the next two hours, the concept of time dissipates for those on the dancefloor.
“I am from the dancefloor. Maybe that’s why I understand the dynamics of what a dancefloor is experiencing, and so I DJ to what a dancer would want to hear and feel”
Although born in São Paulo, Brazil, Paoletti spent her teens growing up in the post-industrial American city of Buffalo, New York. “I was living there at a time when it was a very depressed place economically, but it used to be a super-vibrant city,” Paoletti says. “It was one of the wealthiest cities in the United States back in the ’20s. Because of its location on the Eerie Canal, it was a major inlet for manufacturing for the whole North Eastern United States.”
BOSTON
Already transfixed with what was going on in that particular scene, it was when Paoletti moved to Boston that the idea of throwing her own parties materialised. “I was like 22 or 23. I didn’t realise that someone my age could just book a venue, and book DJs, and be responsible with money on that level, and throw a successful event. So I was really inspired by people that I met in the scene in Boston that were my age and were doing those things.”
