Music in the Age of Viral Communication

Abstract

Purpose of Article. The purpose of the article is to reveal implosive effects of instant communication in modern musical and paramusical forms. Methodology. Methodological principles, used by the author, involve general scientific methods, musical analysis, microsociology (analysis of affordance and inscriptions) as well as polemical and introspective approaches. Scientific novelty. The author identifies viral markers of modern musical forms; musical communication interpreted as the dialectic of affordance and inscriptions of media; ringtone is researched as the intonational practice of instant communication. Conclusions. Problematization of the viral topic in the information field of culture allows to reach new frontiers of conceptualizing media virus as purely singular sense, effect of surface, that is free from any meaning, something that appears as the result of "insane becoming", when elimination of time and space discriminates the process of signification as a function of distance between signifier and signified. Music, as the least of all the figurative arts (therefore most prone to nonsense and paradox) and as a narrative art, is predictably experiencing extremely intense influence of the situation of "instant communication", which leads the world today. The author attempts to apply the ideas of dromology (Paul Virilio) to the plane of memetics in the context of contemporary music and communication strategies. The global crisis of attention and the "channel switch syndrome" leads to the appearance of compact musical and paramusical forms, which are considered as the result of the prominent strategy, as the main viral marker. These forms include ringtones, jingles and audio logos. A key role in the formation of these phenomena belongs to the musical shift from live to private forms, resulting the situation of "involuntary attention" of concert hall has been superseded by a total nonlinearity of personal media. Explosive anti-narrative activity of the viral musical forms leads to the development of new strategies of the "unhurried" practices that try to slow down time.