Gary Martin Rolinson Network technologies offer new opportunities to delineate from the accepted norms of practice.

With reference to a single example, how has the digital emerged and developed alternative and avant-garde cultures?
In the 1720s, London was busy getting drunk. Really drunk. The Gin Craze was a time during the early years of the industrial age where people would drink gin as a coping mechanism for the population boom. It was also a change in perception. (Shirky, 2010). The Gin Craze was the reaction to a dramatic social change in the early 1700s, the kind of which we have seen since; just after the Second World War. Watching sitcoms...and the host of other amusements offered by TV was our reaction to this social change, which included increases in GDP, educational attainment, and life span, and left us with something wed never had to deal with on a national scale: free time. (Shirky, 2010). Over recent years however, with the invention and development of the internet, the sitcom has started to share itself with things like social networking sites and Youtube. Like watching television, being connected to the world wide web for hours on end pushes aside other activities that are less immediately engaging but can produce longer term satisfaction. (Shirky, 2010). ! As technology advances though, we are able to participate in these engaging activities whilst online, creating a new culture where products to buy and people to talk to are only a click of a mouse away. This culture displays avant-garde qualities as it shows a pushing of the boundaries of what is expected as the norm. Things like shopping, instant communication or watching live music prior to the invention of the internet involved leaving the house and socialising with people face to face. Money in the form of notes coins or cards are handed over physically to the cashier. Taking in a persons body language is an important part of analysing someones mood in conversation. And being part of a crowd singing back lyrics to a performing musician was the only way to partake in a concert. These cultural mannerisms still exist of course but network technologies offer new alternatives that require less human interactivity or effort. Streaming a live concert online is similar to watching television [b]ecause TV goes in through the eyes as well as the ears, it immobilises even moderately attentive users, freezing them on chairs and couches, as a prerequisite for consumption. For most people most of the time, watching TV is the activity. (Shirky, 2010) However there is a difference here. The avant garde culture created by digital emergence offers a connection with those online unlike those just watching TV. ! The dominance of the internet and network technologies has created a Global Village, a term closely associated with Marshall McLuhan. In his book Understanding Media (1964), he describes how the world is contracted into a village by network technologies. As electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village. Electric speed at bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden implosion has heightened human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree. (McLuhan, 1964). Through media such as the telephone, television and the internet, people are being increasingly linked together across the globe. This has enabled communication with people all around the world as fast as it takes us to contact those who live in the same village. McLuhan also predicts quite accurately thirty years before the invention of the internet, how it will be an extension of consciousness (McLuhan, 1962). ! In terms of the music industry, the Global Village has changed things drastically. It has forced new forms of practice as people spend more time on the internet. Swedishfounded company Spotify provides a leading music streaming service which has recently

taken advantage of network technologies as a means of self-promotion. Integrating users accounts with Facebook and Twitter allows them to access their friends playlists. Social networking sites could be seen as a essential building block used to develop the Global Village. Facebook alone has over 800 million active users each of which with an average of 130 online friends. Social networking sites like this allow users to meet new people that they would not have had the chance to in person for many different reasons. In reference to streaming a live concert, this Global Village allows other online users from around the world to communicate with each other and share their personal experiences of the concert as it is happening with things like forums and chat features on social networking sites. ! YouTube made its foray into live streaming in late 2008 which has since shown a huge demand for it with events such as cricket matches and a U2 concert. The one issue that Youtube have is that they dont have the rights to many sporting events or concerts but if they can nd a revenue model where people have to pay for streams or advertising is shared around live streams then content producers might ock to the site. With well over 2 billion video views every day the audience is clearly there. (Harbison, 2011) This may not be the future of television but you could see how this could evolve over time in to a central hub for your online viewing (Harbison, 2011) ! A recent example of interactivity with live streaming was a Coldplay concert in Milan which was broadcast on Youtube and in Times Square, New York on four large screens rented by American Express, Sponsors of the event. For fans watching at home it was a chance to take advantage of all the digital tools. Viewers were able to switch between several different camera views including a director's cut, main stage, aerial camera and other standard options. The live stream also featured a chat pulling in comments and posts from people around the world. (Sniderman, 2011) ! Streaming a live gig could be seen as just a commercial result of this cultural change, but it poses more questions than just: how much money can we make from this?. In the well known Allegory of the Cave used by Plato in his work The Republic (Plato, 2007), ideas of what is real and what is not are challenged. These issues can be related to live concert streaming. The Allegory of the Cave stirs thought about we perceive to be a real experience. In Platos ctional dialogue, prisoners that have only been exposed to a wall on which only shadows and echoes can be experienced, perceive them to be real. So in terms of a live gig or concert which is more real: being with the artist in the concert hall or watching them on a computer screen? Is watching your favourite band on the internet an echo of the real thing? In the dialogue, Socrates supposes that one of the prisoners is released, exposing him to the things that had cast the shadows on the wall. He suggests that the prisoner would not recognise these things and would believe the shadows and echoes to be more real than them. This suggests however that if someone were to only ever be exposed to a computer screen watching a concert, they would not recognise the performer in real life and perceive the online concert to be more real. ! In a battle between real and virtual Susan Sontag contrasts theatre and lm by asserting that whereas theatre is conned to a logical or continuous use of space[,] cinema... has access to an alogical or discontinuous use of space. (Auslander, 1999). This could be applied to live concert streaming by replacing theatre and lm, with being at a concert and watching a live stream of the gig, respectively. Although only displaying live events, the computer screen has access to the alogical use of space as technology allows different camera angles, close-up shots and volume control. This, like the Allegory of the Cave, suggests that there is a big difference between watching a stream of a performance and seeing people on stage eye to eye. It suggests that, technology is the medium that takes away the liveness from the experience. ! However, live performance has developed and now often incorporates mediatisation such that the live event itself is a product of media technologies. A soon as electric amplication is used, one might say that an event is mediatised. What we actually hear is

the vibration of a speaker, a reproduction by technological means of a sound picked up by a microphone, not the original acoustic event. (Auslander, 1999).This suggests opposing thoughts to the Allegory of the cave. If the absence of mediatisation is what makes a live performance live and real then most concerts in this modern live music culture are neither. A lot of live performances now, in terms of music especially, are supported by giant television screens for spectators to watch signicant portions of a concert on. (Auslander, 1999) Surely this is the same as looking at a computer screen and seeing the concert. Devices such as instant replay whilst watching a football match, or a close-up at a music festival, were at one time understood to be secondary elaborations of what was originally a live event but are now constitutive of the live event itself. Given these conditions, attending a live performance...these days is often roughly the experience of watching a small, noisy TV set in a large, crowded eld. (Auslander, 1999) This suggests that there is little difference beyond matters of geography that separate the experience of a live concert. This development of the digital then has created an alternative culture that takes advantage of the fact that a live concert can be experienced from home on a computer, often for free. This stirs another issue associated with new network technologies: illegal downloading and illegal streaming. ! The issue with illegal downloads or streaming is that money is not being payed to deserve the right to watch or listen to someones content. Because of the ease of access to illegal content, there is now a culture that downloads their favourite songs and movies for free. Is this morally right? Just because the content is available for free, does that lift moral dilemmas that would usually stop somebody from stealing a CD from a supermarket? In The Gift written by Marcel Mauss (1954), the idea of gift-exchange is explored within different cultures and the nature of obligation to give is detailed. Giving and receiving is steeped in morality and creates a bond between the donor and receiver. In a society where illegal downloads are at an all time high it is difcult to conclude how the role of morality has perhaps changed in this alternative online culture, and how much of a determinant it is when it comes to making decisions such as streaming live concerts or downloading music illegally. ! As more and more people join the Global Village online, perhaps some guilt of not paying for music or streaming online concerts is relieved as one does not see physically who they are stealing from; in a shop there is a cashier and often at small intimate gigs a performer will sell their music in person. Maybe there is less or no guilt felt because the music or experience was not perceived as a gift as it was taken, and so easily. One of the problems with online streaming is where the live stream is hosted. Even though you are not downloading content, the source of the movie, concert or football match has to come from somewhere. For illegal streaming, the footage has been illegally uploaded to a website host. Certain websites nd a legal loop hole that allows them to host links to the content being streamed, but do not host the content itself. So as the content is so easily accessible it may be that people stealing it do not feel it is an exchange or a gift, thus losing the obligation to reciprocate with money, their gift in return. ! It is easy to nd a large number of facts on the obligation to receive. (Mauss, 1954) This suggests that within a lot of relationships there are times where one expects to receive something, like hospitality, or a present from someone. The obligation to give is no less important. (Mauss, 1954). To give or reciprocate a gift demonstrates social integrity and builds social relationships. However with the online culture and its number of illegal downloaders growing it could be seen that because the content it being taken from hosted sites, there is no-one to offend in society by not giving something in return for them. This displays an emotional attachment with giving and receiving as well as just material gain. Our morality is not solely commercial. Things have values which are emotional as well as material. (Mauss, 1954). This suggests that as there may not always be an emotional attachment to an artist whose music is being downloaded, it doesnt matter whether they

will be paid or not. Perhaps it would be different if to download the music illegally the receiver was in the presence of the artist who created the content, consciously knowing that the artist will not be receiving money from them. Perhaps its the dehumanising of the exchanges within society that lifts guilt from people. Could it be that the Global Village is home to an alternative culture of thieves and criminals? ! So why dont people stream or download illegally? There are some companies like Spotify and Youtube that allow free streaming of content to the public as the performers are often paid from sponsorship of the event. What role do these companies play when trying to resolve issues of morality? These companies create an avant garde culture of people who can watch and listen to music for free of charge of both money and guilt. Networking technologies that support Youtubes live concert streaming allow performers to give some receivers a gift without the obligation to receive a gift in return from them. In terms of the receiver how is this different to illegal streaming? They are still not reciprocating a gift in return for theirs. It could be seen that some viewers may still feel similar guilt because of this, as giving is an obligation they may miss out on feeling morally content. However, knowing the performer will receive a gift it is likely people are happy to watch the concert for free. ! To conclude, it is clear that developing network technologies have created new cultures based around the Global Village. The internet allows people ease of access to free content both legally and illegally which has drastically changed ideas of value in society. It has also become a hub making more and more activities available to do online changing the paradigms of time and space for people. Villagers can watch Coldplay live in Milan from their bedroom as if they were in the same physical space. Through advances in technology viewers can experience world wide performances in the comfort of their own home. ! It could be argued that as far as ocular vision is concerned, a real event can be seen only at the instant of occurrence. (Auslander, 1999). In contrast to this, unlike lm, but like theatre, a television broadcast is characterised as a performance in the present. (Auslander, 1999). In the Global Village media in the form of live concert streaming works in the same way. It may not necessarily matter where the concert is being watched from as long as it is live, happening at the present time. ! Social networking sites have created a new culture where communication with another person across the planet is simple and fast. This can be advantageous in some ways, however there may be a sense that the amount people communicate through technologies has allowed them to remain in physical isolation. The dose makes the poison. (Shirky, 2010). Referring back to the sitcom as a response to social transformation, the question of TV isnt about the content, but about their volume. (Shirky, 2010). The world wide web allows people to consume content and talk to people about that content in a matter of minutes, with only a few clicks of a mouse. ! Bibliography Clay Shirky (2010). Cognitive Surplus. London: Penguin Group. p1-5. Marcel Mauss (2011). The Gift. USA: Martino Publishing. p11 and p63. Marshall McLuhan (1962). The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. London: Routledge. p31 and p296. Marshall McLuhan (1964). Understanding Media. New York: Mentor. p5. Niall Harbison. (2011).

New Youtube Live Streaming Everything You Need To Know. Available: http://www.simplyzesty.com/video/new-youtube-live-streaming-everything-youneed-to-know/. Last accessed 12th October 2011 Philip Auslander (1999). Liveness. Oxon: Routledge. p15-25. Plato (1974). The Republic. Harmondsworth: Penguin. p240-48. Zachary Sniderman. (2011). Coldplay to Live Stream Free Concert on YouTube. Available: http://news.yahoo.com/coldplay-live-stream-free-concert-youtube-151904323.html. Last accessed 12th November 2011.