@Newmusic #Soundart: Contemporary Music in the Age of Social Media

Social media have been touted as many things: a force for democracy, an abettor of extremism, a place where elections and emotions can be manipulated, a place to find a job, a way to transform one’s life into a marketable product, a place to ease the sting of loneliness or to descend further into the abyss. Music is omnipresent on these platforms: it is made, shared, critiqued, manipulated for other ends. Contemporary composers and other actors in the contemporary music milieu are not immune to the effects of social media, and some actively use it to create an image for themselves, promote their work, or as a source of inspiration. Our aim with this issue is to look at the myriad ways social media have been taken up by actors in the contemporary music world.

There are a number of studies on new media and popular music taking into account very different perspectives. One of the main topics is the changes in the popular music industry brought about by the shift to digital formats, multimedia practices, and new technologies, with a focus on aspects such as consumption behaviours (Salo, Lankinen, and Mäntymaki 2013), sales (Dewan and Ramaprasad 2014; Szymkowiak, Kubala, and Antoniak 2020), and engagement with fans (Oh and Choeh 2022). Popular music artists use social media to promote their brand and to create a cohesive fan base (Baym 2012; Edlom and Karlsson 2021). Their engagement with these platforms has been sometimes crucial for promoting empowering and allyship attitudes (Deflem 2017; Avdeeff 2021), but this activism can be ambiguous (Dhaenens and Burgess 2019): some studies have shown that this engagement is sometimes merely a facade for gaining or keeping followers (Wellman 2022). Fortunately, social media may also help compensate for geographical inequalities in popular music (Verboord and van Noord 2016) and historically marginalised or neglected groups can find a space and reach a larger audience online than off. The case of Korean and Korean American musicians is paradigmatic in this sense (Jung 2014; Jin and Yoon 2016). Additionally, it is important to stress that a responsible use of social media has proven useful for music education purposes (Rudolph and Frankel 2009; Albert 2015; Giebelhausen 2015).

The link between contemporary art music/sound art and social media has not been explored extensively as yet, which is precisely the aim of the present issue. We notice that the contemporary art music community has not embraced social media as enthusiastically or as quickly as the world of pop music has, which may be a reflection of the popular/art music dualism as theorised by Pierre Bourdieu (1992), or possibly a disdain for popular culture à la Adorno (1998). However, some composers have indeed begun to reckon with the evolution of media, social and otherwise, in the last decades, raising concerns and engaging with issues including copyright in the digital age, surveillance, and the social work of composition (Kreidler 2008; Muntendorf 2016; Schubert 2021, 38–46).¹ Through its presence on social media, contemporary art music occupies the public sphere in a different sense from when it takes the stage of the West’s venerated cultural institutions, and through its public presence it makes a political statement, even if that statement is simply one of reaffirming the cultural hierarchy. Rather than being autonomous, music that explicitly engages with social media thereby implicitly questions the underlying norms of an art world that finds its historical roots in the courts and churches of Europe.²

Back in the before times—in the distant age of 2008 when ‘social network sites’ (Boyd and Ellison 2007) were still finding their footing, and when tech wasn’t yet Big Tech—, social media were seen as an extension of socialisation that took place in real life; meeting strangers was not the point. In the last decade, social media has gone from being a relatively marginal activity, mainly aimed at maintaining offline social relationships, to a situation where the corporate leadership of two major social media sites—Facebook and Twitter—was called to testify before the US Congress in 2021 to assess their role in influencing the US presidential election. These have become spaces where one has not only ‘friends’, but increasingly ‘followers’, and where ‘influencing’ is monetised and seen as a possible career objective. In short, social media are no longer simply about leisure and friendships, they are also a space where labour is provided either freely or in expectation of a return. It is now common practice for artists and the organisations they frequent to maintain a presence on social media—this is seen as part of the work of being a creative individual.

Labour in a social media setting is often discussed in terms of ‘prosumption’: a ‘prosumer’ is a consumer/producer, or a consumer turned producer, active in a communication structure that is ‘many-to-many’, as opposed to the ‘one-to-many’ structure of traditional media (Tucker et al. 2017, 48–49). This labour is remunerated most often with visibility at some level, and some highly visible individuals can also generate revenue from this. The real profits, however, are in the hands of the social media companies themselves, for whom this virtual, gifted, user-generated content is the foundation upon which advertising and other revenue streams are based. In the texts collected in this issue, we often see the positive, creative side of this work, in ‘a gift economy where goods are circulated freely for shared benefit rather than sold for profit’ (Jenkins cited in Cook 2019, 16). This is coherent with the inverted economy of contemporary art music, wherein respect from one’s peers is valued over monetary profit (Bourdieu 1992; Craig 2007). What is left unsaid, however, is that this economy of attention is the foundation for a market of data, and in the eyes of the platform, a cat video and a work of contemporary art music are in the same bag—one that is covered in dollar signs (Cook 2019).

In social media, where one can ‘type oneself into being’ (Sundén cited in Boyd and Ellison 2007, 211), concrete rewards, in the form of social connections, are given to those willing to share their tastes (Johnson and Ranzini 2018). The display of taste in this context is necessarily performative—it is ‘shared’ and meant to be visible to others, thus creating an idealised digital self. And ‘social network sites’, despite their focus on friends and the bonds between them, are by nature ‘egocentric’, in that ‘the individual [is] at the centre of their own community’, and networks of friends ‘serve to validate identity information presented in profiles’ (Boyd and Ellison 2007, 219). None of us have ‘fixed, stable selves, but negotiate who we are through our interactions with others’ (Cook 2019, 9). Consider, for instance, the case of Internet memes (Shifman 2014): through participating in their circulation and creation, individuals become involved in the negotiation of values and meaning within a given online community.

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With these more general thoughts on social media in the current landscape, we now turn to the contributions of the articles collected in this issue, in order to gain a better understanding of how contemporary art music and sound art are engaging with these media. They cover a diverse range of social media and their use in contemporary music, as musical and extra-musical materials, as models for audience interaction, as tools for dissemination, and as catalysts for new approaches to interdisciplinarity. Although the variety of case studies presented in this issue is wide, they are only a sample of the multiple creative and social practices which are emerging in the contemporary music milieu.

ASMR—Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response—implies a dissolution of boundaries between the self and the medium with which it interacts. This acronym has come to refer to a body of work meant to stimulate a response akin to that of the presence of another person. Giulia Accornero interviewed a series of composers whose techniques bear an interest in the ‘microscopic dimension of sound’, with amplification technologies allowing a closeness that can be perceived as a form of emotional intimacy. The author identifies an ASMR genre, which includes work of contemporary composers, but goes far beyond that to Internet users with an interest in sound, in a context where anyone with a microphone and an Internet connection could contribute to the genre, thereby achieving the ‘utopian dream of tearing down the difference between artists and regular people’.

An additional breakdown of the barrier between the performer/composer and their audience is also problematised in the category of ‘lockdown performances’. This is discussed by Zubin Kanga, who posits that the globally shared experience of confinement to the domestic space is one that is unique to the era of COVID restrictions, and is one that created a body of work with unique characteristics. Indeed, the global lockdown created a ‘collision’ of ‘historical modes of cultural production and the new affordances of Web 2.0’. One of the features of this body of work is the display—whether problematised or not—of the domestic space of the performer. By featuring these ‘ordinary’ aspects of the performer/composer’s life, the trappings that typically separate them from their audience—stage, curtain, attire, silence, tickets, space, etc.—fall away, breaking down barriers between musicians’ private and public lives.

Memetics, i.e. the theory of memes, is the methodological core of José L. Besada’s contribution. He scrutinises the creation of two multimedia works by composers Brigitta Muntendorf and Óscar Escudero, respectively Public Privacy #1: Flute Cover (2013) and Custom #1 (2016). Both musicians use social media for inspiration and material, all the while maintaining the creative authority traditionally associated with composers of Western art music. The works discussed show the influence of memetic creation in social media, without being memes themselves—in the sense we provide to this term in the Internet. In essence, it is not just the content of social media, but also the—sometimes collective—creative processes they foster, that are reflected in the compositional processes of composers today.

Anna Schürmer’s starting point is the idea that media can be understood as ‘extensions of ourselves’. Specifically, the Internet created the possibility for ‘immersion’, meaning a ‘multisensory descent into a virtual world and thus the totalisation of aesthetic reflection’. Echoing descriptions of the experience of playing computer games, Schürmer introduces the notion of ‘extended opera’, where listeners become fully engaged, finally leading, ideally, to the abolishment of the ‘hierarchical disposition of classical opera’. Operas are notoriously resource-dependent, and what Schürmer reveals here is a body of repertoire that no longer needs to rely on these institutions to create an operatic experience—although the case of Genesis by Alexander Schubert analysed by her and the piece discussed in the paragraph below show the enthusiasm of these bodies for these potentially low-budget, highly visible productions.

In the video opera One Vote Won, analysed by Caitlin Schmid, the main character is seen scrolling through her social media feed. With this gesture, the performer and the audience are brought closer through their shared experience of social media. This video opera also falls into the aforementioned category of ‘lockdown performance’ in that it came about in its current form as a way to deal with the fact that live performance was not possible at the time it was commissioned and premiered. Schmid shows how this opera plays with two contrasting notions of engagement, both as activism and as a buzzword for social media interaction. The Nashville Opera used it as a vehicle to meet new audiences where they actually are: on social media. The work has a political message—an implied #BlackLivesMatter stance and an explicit entreaty to vote in the 2020 presidential election—that must be filtered through the political reality of arts funding in the United States: it is heavily dependent on individual contributions from the cultural elite, while at the same time required to navigate the anti-elitism inherent to US-American public arts funding.

Memetics are back in the two last contributions of this issue. Joana Freitas’ scrutiny of several Facebook pages collecting humorous content on contemporary musical practices sheds light on an important paradox. Although many members of the contemporary music milieu consider themselves to be left-leaning, the humour of this community circulating on social media is much more conservative than might be expected, and sometimes may become even reactionary. For instance, Freitas provides in her article some cases of memes of contemporary art music which are, unfortunately, no less misogynistic than others spreading on the Internet sites for popular music.

Eduardo Viñuela also explores contemporary art music memes in his contribution: he explicitly states that selecting and creating memes is an act of positioning and an articulation of one’s identity. Memes represent a clear case of how ‘prosumer’ culture affects not only the content being used for memes, but also the creative processes of the original ‘prosumers’, if you will: artists. Indeed, Viñuela shows that memes serve the important role of giving an online community a trigger for communication, although the community can become increasingly insular as ties are strengthened through the sharing and discussion of content. For this purpose, he particularly focuses on the humoresque content of several videomemes mentioning or reproducing Western art music pieces of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

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This thread of immersion and intimacy emerges in this issue, which is perhaps not surprising, given that the authors were writing these articles during the period of global lockdowns related to COVID-19. The works discussed are partially in reaction to the restrictions that forced many into different forms of isolation, although they can also be seen as a continuation of trends toward engaging with virtual and social media of the past decades. How could we interpret these efforts? Are they evidence of social media’s ability to bring us together, or rather a desire to compensate for the feelings of alienation they create? During the global lockdowns, work and life for many started to blur in disconcerting ways, the boundaries between one’s public and private selves became fluid, and intimacy—whether through mundane gestures such as a handshake, or simply being in the same space as another person—was lost for many. Social media were asked to replace much of this during that time, and it is not surprising that Facebook morphed into the all-consuming Metaverse over this period, as many people’s lives—especially, of course, those of workers in white collar, ‘non-essential’ jobs—shifted increasingly into the virtual realm.

The majority of the articles in the present issue are largely positive regarding social media and its potential for contemporary music, especially in that it allows for new forms of interaction between composers, performers, and the audience; this introduction takes a much more critical stance on these media. Does sharing memes—or disinformation—forge community or actually allow us to participate in our own disenfranchisement (Mejias and Vokuev 2017)? It is simply astonishing to see the power these companies have, which has gone largely unchecked over their lifetimes—leading some to ask if democracy can indeed survive the Internet (Persily 2017). From a less bleak angle, the way contemporary art music occupied virtual spaces during the period of global lockdowns was welcomed by many, as some of the articles collected here attest. How will these practices continue and change, as ‘normal’ life returns? Will contemporary art music engage with the inherently political element of its presence on these media, or simply use the infrastructure provided by these corporations for its own ends? In looking to the future of the relationship between contemporary music and social media, musicians should be mindful of the profit-driven nature of these companies, and of the responsibilities they have in choosing how they participate in, and create with, social networks.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annelies Fryberger

Annelies Fryberger is a sociologist, working mainly on evaluation processes, often in the field of music. Her PhD (2016, EHESS, Paris) looked at peer review in the field of contemporary art music in France and the United States. This research was conducted while she was a member of the Centre for Research on Arts and Language (CRAL-EHESS) and the research team ‘Analysis of Musical Practices’ at IRCAM. An excerpt of her dissertation has been published in English in the journal Poetics. A book based on her dissertation is scheduled for publication in 2022 (Symétrie, in French). Other research projects have dealt with sound art, social media, and the economics of art worlds.

José L. Besada

Following two post-doctoral periods at IRCAM and at the University of Strasbourg, José L. Besada is currently a mid-term research fellow at the Complutense University of Madrid. His research focuses on the formal, technological, and cognitive features of both contemporary musical practices and music theory. Some of his works have been published in leading journals such as Perspectives of New Music, Tempo, Organised Sound, Music Analysis, and Music Theory Online. He currently serves on the executive board of the Société Française d’Analyse Musicale (SFAM) and is a founding member of the Sociedad de Análisis y Teoría Musical (SATMUS) in Spain.

Zubin Kanga

Zubin Kanga is a pianist, composer, researcher and technologist. His work in recent years has focused on new models of interaction between a live musician and new technologies, including motion sensors, AI, VR, analogue synthesisers, new interactive instruments, bio-sensors, interactions with live-video, and internet-based scores. He has collaborated with many of the world’s leading composers and premiered more than 130 works. He has performed at many international festivals including the BBC Proms, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Melbourne Festival, Festival Présences, Klang Festival, and November Music. He is the Lecturer in Musical Performance and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London as well as the PI and Director of Cyborg Soloists, a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project exploring new music-technology collaborations between artists and industry.

Notes

1 It is important also to highlight in this context Jennifer Walshe’s manifest on the New Discipline: www.borealisfestival.no/2016/the-new-discipline-4.

2 Tim Rutherford-Johnson (2017) provides the following definition of contemporary art music: ‘[Contemporary art music comprises] pieces that [are] composed or pre-planned reflectively, fixed in some sort of notation for a performer or creator to interpret or execute, and intended to be listened to by an attentive, informed, and critical audience. We might add that it is a style of music that traces its primary lineage back to the courts and churches of pre-Renaissance Europe, and although those courts and churches are today mostly long defunct or culturally marginal, contemporary art music maintains an important relationship with their modern-day descendants and the structures of production and listening that they represent’ (3).