Agne Bore | “Spatiotemporal Dynamics in Festival-Owned Digital Platforms”
Agne Bore | “Spatiotemporal Dynamics in Festival-Owned Digital Platforms” | Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication; Media and Communication | Promotor(es); supervisor(s): Marc Verboord; Yosha Wijngaarden & Michaël Berghman | 01 November 2024 – 30 October 2028 | bore[at]eshcc.eur.nl
Music festivals no longer start at the gate or end with the last act. Instead, they begin months before, unfold dynamically during, and linger long after as organizers and audiences leverage technologies to shape collective memories, experiences and anticipations (Hammelburg, 2020; Hill et al., 2022). Festivals are inherently spatialized, taking place in a designated space within which participants are separated from non-participating bodies for a set period of time (Woodward & Swartjes, 2024). Within these boundaries, organizers curate spatio-temporal elements to design distinct zones for immersion, consumption or social interactions (Preece et al., 2022; Steadman et al., 2021; Swartjes & Berkers, 2022; Woodward & Swartjes, 2024). This spatial curation is, however, no longer limited to the physical realm. Digitalization allows organizers to extend their design efforts into the digital sphere (Fernandes & Krolikowska, 2023).
By deploying proprietary technologies, organizers can concentrate information in one place (Estanyol, 2022), transforming them into digital artifacts of the institution. Examples such as bespoke mobile applications and online communities, therefore, have the ability to expand permeate and diffuse the boundaries of space and time within the setting of the festival (Ash, 2013). Yet, research has largely overlooked this transformation, failing to account for how festivals integrate digital technologies into their experiential design. Scarce existing research has primarily focused on livestreaming technologies external to the host organization, such as Twitch (Swarbrick & Vuoskoski, 2023; Vandenberg, 2022; Vandenberg et al., 2021). The proposed dissertation will, therefore, aim to understand how festival-owned platforms augment the space and time of festivals.
References:
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