Wallpaper: When worlds collide: How a skateboard deck graphic became Plastikman, a techno icon for the ages
The 1990s saw a sketch by graphic designer Ron Cameron define Richie Hawtin’s musical alias.
HERO Magazine: Richie Hawtin and Luke Jaden
Techno’s history is a brief one compared to the likes of rock ’n’ roll, reggae or soul, beginning to gain popularity in the early 1980s in raw, underground basements and warehouses as opposed to commercial dancehalls or mainstream radio. For world-renowned musician Richie Hawtin, the brevity of that legacy allowed him to pen a new one. As a pioneer of Detroit’s seminal techno movement, Hawtin helped define the sound of a generation, rewriting the rules of electronic music from the late ’80s into the 1990s through to today.
The parties Hawtin threw are the stuff of legend – orchestrated by those in the know, everybody was invited, yet not everybody found it. Before the days of Resident Advisor and Instagram, when parties weren’t plotted out months in advance, getting into Hawtin’s Spastik nights meant being part of the right crowd – the ones chasing the pulse of 120 BPM, willing to bask in the serenity of the ambient room, ready to dance into the early hours and lose themselves in fleeting connections with strangers that might last a lifetime – or just a single track. Hawtin’s performances still resonate today, drawing in up-and-coming filmmaker Michigan-based Luke Jaden.
After years immersed in the Midwest’s club scene, Jaden came to understand just how pivotal Richie Hawtin’s presence had been in shaping the sound and spirit of those nights. A chance encounter with Hawtin sparked a collaboration: a short film built around one of techno’s most mythologised moments: the Spastik party Hawtin threw inside Detroit’s derelict Packard Plant on August 13, 1994. Promoted through cryptic flyers, street signs, and last-minute hotline numbers, the party drew in true devotees of the underground. That night becomes the heartbeat of Kids Like Us, a short film written and directed by Jaden, with Hawtin as executive producer. More than a retelling, the film captures a defining decade – a portrait of a subculture that offered escape, connection, and meaning in a time of economic turmoil and social fragmentation.
In conversation with one another, Hawtin and Jaden discuss the importance of accurate representation, the shifting landscape of techno and the beauty of connections built on the dancefloor.
