Instrumenting(s):

This Visual Law article accounts an event “A Royal Dis-Sent – Re-Writing and Re-Imagining a Series of Repetitive Beats CJA 1994” held at House of Annetta, on London’s Brick Lane, on Sunday 3 November 2024. On that day it was 30 years since the notorious Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (CJA) 1994 was given royal assent, illegalizing raves, banning music that “includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats” (section 63(1)(B)). Discussions as to the nature of sound and law are unravelled, considering prohibition, nomadism, repetition and property concerning the connections found between law, music and aesthetics that the CJA 1994 and the workshop highlighted. The summary relays the work of event organizers Dr Daniel Hignell-Tully and Dr Lucy Finchett-Maddock under the guise of transdisciplinary project “Instrumenting(s)”, investigating the relations between sound, property and law, and how we may best understand the history of land within legalities and their resistances via a combination of legal, scientific and artistic research through the development of a “geosocial instrument”. Keywords: CJA 1994; sound; prohibition; nomadism; repetition; law and aesthetics.