Guest lecture: Maria Witek on distributed affect and vibe in electronic dance music, HU Berlin, 09.07.2020 18:00

Online Gastvorlesungsreihe Collegium Musicologicum
Seminar für Musikwissenschaft Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Donnerstag, 09.07.2020, 18:00

Maria Witek (University of Birmingham)
Feeling at One: Socio-affective distribution and vibe in electronic dance music

Vibe is a well-known phenomenon in research on dance music cultures, including dub/reggae, hip hop, house and techno. It can be construed as an affective atmosphere that is collectively shaped by the rhythmic interlocking of its different elements, such as the DJ, the music, the dancers, the space, the lights and the temperature. Ethnographic and phenomenological accounts of dance music consciousness are filled with subjective reports of feelings of oneness, unity, ego dissolution, ecstasy and oceanic experience. However, such dissolving of subjectivity during dancing, clubbing and raving has been treated largely as metaphor. This talk advances the notion of affective distribution by suggesting how the cognitive processes of dancing, clubbing and raving extend across the materiality of the beat and the body. I consider vibe from the phenomenological perspective of socio-affective Extended Mind and focus on its musical properties. I illustrate how the temporal structure of syncopation opens up spaces or gaps in the rhythmic surface that invite the body to ‘fill in’ through synchronised body-movement, thus providing the body with opportunities to physically occupy the musical beat. The talk thus asserts that the breakdown of boundaries between body, brain, music and environment is not just metaphorical but also material and physiological. In doing so it argues for a non-anthropocentric view of music and affect, where vibe is distributed between both human and non-human actors.

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