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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Clouds and Concerts: Mediation and Mobility in Contemporary Music Culture.

Awarded: NOK 10.0 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

205265

Application Type:

Project Period:

2011 - 2016

Location:

Clouds and Concerts investigates the ways in which technological innovation in recent years has impacted how we listen to music, how music is distributed and how audiences experience live music. Streaming services, including WiMP (now TIDAL) and Spotify, and music festivals have undergone sweeping changes over the past decade and supply the empirical focus of the project’s two main parts: Clouds (concerned with streaming and music online) and Concerts (concerned with festivals and live music). In the Clouds subproject, we examine streaming data from WiMP for general listening patterns as well as some indication of how big events, such as the Øya festival, might influence music streaming. This streaming data is analyzed in collaboration with researchers at Telenor. In the Concerts subproject, the Øya festival supplies the case study for in-depth research over a four-year period on the relationship between the actual concerts and the mediated sharing culture that surrounds this festival. The Clouds and Concerts project also investigates the use of social media in connection with streaming services and music festivals, with a special focus on the mobile phone as a technological platform.

The advent of digital mediating technologies has brought about a totally new environment for the production, distribution and reception of music. Still the role of the new digital environments in contemporary music culture is under researched, within medi a studies, technology studies and musicology. This project comprises three research questions related to this development. First, it is aimed at investigating the relationship between live and mediated forms of artist-audience interaction. Of particular i nterest is how the content and value of liveness has changed with the new forms and combinations of mediation and live performance made possible by online communication and distribution. A second field of investigation is the specific interaction of indiv idual and collective forms of reception of the new digital environments. The third research question aims at viewing the two other research questions through the focal lens of a particular and personal technology: the mobile phone. The project concerns key challenges linked to the role of music in contemporary society and is aimed at exploring the characteristics of digital technology in the field of music as it is in us. The project is of four years' duration and involves researchers from PhD to profes sor level with background from music and media research.

Publications from Cristin

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Funding scheme:

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam