Producing Liveness

Abstract

The global pandemic has driven musicians online. We report an ethnographic account of how two traditional folk clubs with little previous interest in digital platforms transitioned to online experiences. They followed very different approaches: one adapted their existing singaround format to video conferencing while the other evolved a weekly community-produced, pre-recorded show that could be watched together. However, despite their successes, participants ultimately remained unable to 'sing in chorus' due to network constraints. We draw on theories of liveness from performance studies to explain our findings, arguing that HCI might orientate itself to online liveness as being co-produced through rich participatory structures that dissolve traditional distinctions between live and recorded and performer and audience. We discuss how participants appropriated existing platforms to achieve this, but these in turn shaped their practices in unforeseen ways. We draw out implications for the design and deployment of future live performance platforms. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing • Human computer interaction (HCI) • Empirical studies in HCI

Let’s Play Together through Channels: Understanding the Practices and Experience of Danmaku Participation Game Players in China

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Infrastructures for Virtual Volunteering at Online Music Festivals

“…A recent study of how traditional folk clubs moved their activities on-line during the global pandemic revealed how participants appropriated existing social platforms including Zoom and Facebook to innovate a new format that mixed live and pre-recorded content. The study reported how traditional musicians adopted new digital practices such as the use of visual backdrops and group edited videos, but also how their traditional practices were in turn influenced by their choice of technologies, for example through a perceived pressure to keep producing new material rather than repeating previous tunes and songs as would normally happen when face-to-face [7].…”

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