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People Dancing Without Bodies Thesis for Media and Communication Studies Sally von Rosen People dancing without bodies: A qualitative study of virtual raving in a pandemic Masters in Media and Communication Studies One-year master’s thesis VT 2020 Word count: 18895 Advisor: Erin Cory Examiner: Temi Odumosu 1 Thesis for Media and Communication Studies Sally von Rosen 2 Thesis for Media and Communication Studies Sally von Rosen Abstract This thesis revolves around social dance movements in the form of raving and clubbing in Berlin, and how this performative scene is affected by social distancing measures due to the current situation of Covid-19. As an important moment in history, online body performances and virtual spaces aim to complement and substitute social experiences in physical environments. The field of study relating digital technology to club cultures is timely, as virtual raving is changing social bodies’ interactions. Life has gone online for the sake of upholding socialization, as people find themselves in isolation – in a hybrid experience of the digital and material. To assess these changes in social life, this thesis uses an auto ethnographical case study on virtual raving and interviews with rave participants, and deploys Affordance Theory. The affordances accounted for are those of ‘settings’, ‘socialization’, ‘entertainment’, and ‘mobility’. The analysis demonstrates the possibilities and problems of transferring the meditative and social bodily experiences associated with raving, to virtual environments. The resulting discussion addresses issues of global accessibility, virtual raves, and what these mean for a techno raving sub culture, and the people who participate in it. Keywords: virtual raving, social bodies, social distancing, Affordance Theory, digital natives, virality, rave culture, liveness, atmosphere, auto ethnography. 3 Thesis for Media and Communication Studies Sally von Rosen Table of Contents Abstract Keywords 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………….………………………………………………………………………………5 2. Background .…………………………………………………..…………………………………………………………………………………..7 2.2 Raving in Berlin .………………………………………..………………………………………………..………………………………8 2.3 Social distancing .………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………………….10 2.4 Virtual raving ..…………………………………………….……………………………………………………………………………12 3. Literature review ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..14 3.2 Club cultures …………………………………………………….………………………………………………………………………14 3.3 Viral videos and digital natives ………………………………………………………………………………………………….17 4. Theoretical framework …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….21 4.2 Affordance Theory ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………22 4.3 ‘Liveness’ & ‘atmosphere’ …………………………………………………………………………………………………………23 4.4 Research questions …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..25 5. Methodology ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………25 5.2 Methods …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..26 5.3 Research design ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..29 5.4 Ethics ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..30 5.5 Limitations & further knowledge ………………………………………………………………………………………………33 6. Findings …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….34 6.2 Field note corpus ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………35 6.3 Summary of interviews …………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….41 7. Analysis …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….42 7.2 Settings …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….42 7.3 Socialization ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..44 7.4 Entertainment …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..45 7.5 Mobility …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….47 8. Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………………….49 9. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..51 Bibliography Appendices 4 Thesis for Media and Communication Studies Sally von Rosen 1. Introduction The start of 2020 vibrated with high expectations, spinning with projects to be realized, and whispers of a virus no one truly believed in. Then, the end of March dawned and the world came to a screeching halt. Where people once teemed with excitement, stress, and a bustling agenda of social arrangements, they were now gripped by a fear of Covid-19. Anxiety reigned, but also an odd calm as basic needs were prioritized, and isolation quieted down the streets. Even the colorful rave culture closed to prevent the spread of this strange, new virus. The shutdown affected social dance movements across the city of Berlin, which thrives in its party atmosphere. It became clear, however, that the city could not be quiet for too long. Clubs found new opportunities despite social distancing – or rather physical social distancing – and isolation. Berlin club organizers designed virtual raves to substitute the loss of social interactions provided by the city’s clubs. Those who already started virtual raves in the form of livestreams prior to the lockdown got a chance to flourish. People attending the virtual raves were not only from Berlin but from all across the globe. The need for socialization was trying to be met, with hopes of putting on a virtual outfit and gaining an intimate interaction in a digital space. The physical social distancing affected and is still affecting club cultures and club-goers by depriving them of the physical space which their club culture identities are tied to. The effects appeared devastating, but as many of these clubbers belong to a generation of ‘digital natives’, a shift toward an even greater online social life could prove their saving grace. One thing that digital natives do the best is spreading information in for example forms of viral videos (as well as creating them), and as technology often is discussed via terms as for example “migrating”, “transferring”, and “viral”, which can also be medical terms, there is an interesting link to be made. A viral virus has now made viral video connection into something necessary, a connection that shows us faces while ‘dematerializing’ the body. Susie Orbach wrote in a recent article for the Guardian on May 7th on the ‘dematerialization of the body’, how we through the internet see faces and not whole 5 Thesis for Media and Communication Studies Sally von Rosen bodies, and how Covid-19 makes us aware of this. Due to Covid-19 new ways of accommodating bodies in reality, via avoiding those, distancing from them, and seeing or not seeing them on a screen, an etiquette of the body which is not natural for us has to become our nature. When a person have to deal with for example a trauma, concerning both the mind and body, Orbach writes that they have to ‘unlearn and learn anew’. With the ‘dematerialization of bodies’, home is viewed as a prison where we miss interactions which are confirming our sense of value and place in our community, in whichever it might be (Orbach 2020). As Covid-19 is affecting our mind and social bodies, changing relationships to one another, many social spaces are made to go ‘virtual’. This thesis therefore seeks to explore how social dance movements are being affected by the current social distancing measures and how these scenes might be changing along with social interactions, while posing the research question: ‘How are the current Covid-19 social distancing measures affecting social dance movements in Berlin?’. This research adopts the use of a case study based in the method of auto ethnography of a virtual rave in combination with interviews with ravers that also had attended this aforementioned virtual rave. To examine the experiences, from the researcher correlated to the interviewees, of the virtual rave the theoretical framework of Affordance theory have been adopted. To help mobilize the theory three sub question will be posed as well: ‘What differentiates a virtual rave from a non-virtual rave?’, What affordances can virtual raves provide for the rave subculture? and ‘How can virtual raving be beneficial for ravers?’. With an interpretivist perspective of defining reality as socially constructed, the researcher’s and the interviewees experiences of the virtual rave are woven into a discussion contributing to the field of media and communication, studying a contemporary form of interactive media that is virtual raving. Further, the different sections of this paper will therefore be presented. The background of this thesis is addressing an in-depth narrative of raving in Berlin and social bodies coming together in this, following a description of how the scene was forced to cope with social distancing, and the reaction as different versions of virtual 6 Thesis for Media and Communication Studies Sally von Rosen raving. The next section is dedicated to previous research, reviewing literature of club cultures as sub-cultures, and viral videos in relation to digital natives. The fourth section consists of the theoretical framework such as Affordance Theory, accompanied by a part consisting of discussing the concepts of ‘liveness’ & ‘atmosphere’. All the research questions are listed in this section as well. Following is the section of methodology, introducing the mixed method of auto ethnography and interviews. The paper’s research design is presented in this section, as a qualitative study using an inductive logic of inquiry with an interpretivist approach, as well as the ethics and limitations & further knowledge. After reviewing methods, the findings of the case study are revealed. The auto ethnographical findings from the virtual rave is written
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