Aesthetic and technical strategies for networked music performance

Abstract

Networked music is no longer a future genre: the global quarantine event of 2020 launched the concept of performing together over the Internet into the mainstream. While the demand for performing at a distance may be a new imperative, musicians find themselves faced with technological and performative processes that do not appear to be suitable for performing music together online, due particularly to network latency which disrupts the ability for musicians to synchronize. The research presented in this paper investigates and challenges the reasons why networked music is not readily embraced by musicians and describes how that might change, by way of interviews with practitioners and an in-depth review of the technical constraints. Limitations that might cause frustration are in fact shown to have creative strategies that give rise to aesthetic approaches, distinct to the platform. By exploiting the constraints, in tandem with developing technology designed specifically for remote performance, aesthetic implications arise that not only accommodate the inconveniences of latency and acoustic feedback but can help us adapt and transform how we engage in real-time online, towards a future where we can imagine performing together over even more dramatic distances such as high-latency, low-bandwidth locations outside of urban areas—or even over galactic distances.