Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:00:24.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Locating liveness in holographic performances: technological anxiety and participatory fandom at Vocaloid concerts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2022

Alyssa Michaud Open the ORCID record for Alyssa Michaud [Opens in a new window]
Alyssa Michaud*
Affiliation:
Ambrose University, Department of Music, 150 Ambrose Circle SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T3H 0L5 E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article addresses the growing global phenomenon of automated holographic concerts given by virtual pop stars called ‘Vocaloids’. Alternately acclaimed by music journalists as ‘the future of music’ and derided as ‘a robo-show, a concert simulacrum’, Vocaloid concerts across the past 10 years have sparked feelings of anxiety and prompted debate about the loss of human interaction at pre-programmed concerts. In this article, I extend Vocaloid research from recent work that addresses Vocaloid's creative online community into the middle of arenas of screaming fans, drawing on participant observation, reception history and live performance analysis in order to demonstrate the importance of participatory fandom in Vocaloid culture and its implications for 21st-century concepts of liveness. I argue that the creation of cultural meaning and the most significant interactions occur within the audience itself, when online amateur music-making communities intersect with participatory fandom at live concert events.

Type
Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 1 - 19
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aoyagi, H. 2005. Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press)Google Scholar
Auslander, P. 2008. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, 2nd edn (London, Routledge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, B.A. 1981. ‘Portrait of a cult film audience: The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, Journal of Communication, 31/2, pp. 43–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, M. 2017. ‘Coming a(live): a prolegomenon to any future research on “liveness”’, in Experiencing Liveness in Contemporary Performance: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (New York, Routledge)Google Scholar
Barton, K.M., and Lampley, J.M. (eds.) 2014. Fan CULTure: Essays on Participatory Fandom in the 21st Century (Jefferson, NC, McFarland)Google Scholar
Bennett, L. 2014. ‘Tracing textual poachers: reflections on the development of fan studies and digital fandom’, The Journal of Fandom Studies, 2/1, pp. 5–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Booth, P. 2013. ‘Augmenting fan/academic dialogue: new directions in fan research’, Journal of Fandom Studies 1/2, 119–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavicchi, D. (1998). Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans (Oxford, Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
Coutinho, E., and Scherer, K.R. 2014. ‘The effect of context and audio-visual modality on emotions elicited by a musical performance’, Psychology of Music, 45, pp. 550–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dwango Co. 2019. ‘NicoNico Chokaigi’, chokaigi.jp/2019/en/aboutGoogle Scholar
Eidsheim, N.S. 2019. ‘Race as zeroes and ones: Vocaloid refused, reimagined, and repurposed’, in The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African-American Music (Durham, NC, Duke University Press), pp. 115–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. 2011. ‘Autoethnography: an overview’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12/1.Google Scholar
Evans, A., and Stasi, M. 2014. ‘Desperately seeking methodology: new directions in fan studies research’, Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, pp. 4–23.Google Scholar
Goto, M. 2017. ‘OngaCREST Project: building a similarity-aware information environment for a content-symbiotic society’, in Human-Harmonized Information Technology, Volume 2: Horizontal Expansion, ed. Nishida, T. (Tokyo, Springer Japan), pp. 1–39Google Scholar
Jenkins, H. 2006. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture (New York, New York University Press)Google Scholar
Jørgensen, S.M.H., Vitting-Seerup, S., and Wallevik, K. 2017. ‘Hatsune Miku: an uncertain image’, Digital Creativity, 28/4, pp. 318–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, C.L. 2019. High-Tech Trash: Glitch, Noise, and Aesthetic Failure (Oakland, CA, University of California Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucus-Flannery, M. 2016. ‘What I learned from a Vocaloid and 1500 screaming millennials’, Medium. medium.com/@marylucusflannery/what-i-learned-from-a-vocaloid-and-1500-screaming-millennials-d181a26d5ce6Google Scholar
Macias, P. 2011. ‘CRN interview: the creators of Hatsune Miku’, Crunchyroll. crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2011/07/21/crn-interview-the-creators-of-hatsune-mikuGoogle Scholar
Marsh, C. 2016. ‘We attended the Hatsune Miku Expo to find out if a hologram pop star could be human’, Vice. vice.com/en_us/article/ae87yb/hatsune-miku-expo-featureGoogle Scholar
NBT and Sizergyia. 2019. ‘Interview with the creator of Hatsune Miku, Hiroyuki Itoh’, JRock News. jrocknews.com/2019/03/interview-hiroyuki-itoh-creator-of-hatsune-miku.htmlGoogle Scholar
Reason, M., and Lindelof, A.M. 2017. Experiencing Liveness in Contemporary Performance: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (New York, Routledge)Google Scholar
Sanden, P. 2012. ‘Virtual liveness and sounding cyborgs: John Oswald's “Vane”’, Popular Music, 31/1, pp. 45–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigman, A. 2020. ‘Robot opera: bridging the anthropocentric and the mechanized eccentric’, Computer Music Journal, 43/1, pp. 21–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinstein, L. 2016. ‘Hatsune Miku at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts’, Live in Limbo. liveinlimbo.com/2016/05/23/concert-reviews/hatsune-at-the-sony-centre-for-the-performing-arts.htmlGoogle Scholar
Wetherbee, B. 2018. ‘Live DC: Hatsune Miku Expo @ The Anthem’, Brightest Young Things. brightestyoungthings.com/articles/live-dc-hatsune-miku-expo-the-anthemGoogle Scholar
Yamada, K. 2017. Supercell Featuring Hatsune Miku (New York, Bloomsbury Academic)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yano, C.R. 2004. ‘Letters from the heart: negotiating fan–star relationships in Japanese popular music’, in Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan, ed. Kelly, W.W. (New York, SUNY Press), pp. 41–58Google Scholar
Yin, Y. 2018. ‘Vocaloid in China: cosmopolitan music, cultural expression, and multilayer identity’, Global Media and China, 3/1, pp. 51–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaborowski, R. 2016. ‘Hatsune Miku and Japanese virtual idols’, in The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality, ed. Whiteley, S. and Rambarran, S. (New York, Oxford University Press), pp. 111–28Google Scholar