2021/05/12 by Steve Benford, Benford, Steve, Paul Mansfield +3
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC) #Innovative Human-Technology Interaction #Music History and Culture #Music Technology and Sound Studies #Music and Audio Processing
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2105.05492
openalex publication_date 2021/05/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The global pandemic has driven musicians online. We report an ethnographic\naccount of how two traditional folk clubs with little previous interest in\ndigital platforms transitioned to online experiences. They followed very\ndifferent approaches: one adapted their existing singaround format to video\nconferencing while the other evolved a weekly community-produced, pre-recorded\nshow that could be watched together. However, despite their successes,\nparticipants ultimately remained unable to sing in chorus due to network\nconstraints. We draw on theories of liveness from performance studies to\nexplain our findings, arguing that HCI might orientate itself to online\nliveness as being co-produced through rich participatory structures that\ndissolve traditional distinctions between live and recorded and performer and\naudience. We discuss how participants appropriated existing platforms to\nachieve this, but these in turn shaped their practices in unforeseen ways. We\ndraw out implications for the design and deployment of future live performance\nplatforms.\n