Migrating to Remote Performance: Continued Artistic Agency in Response to Quarantine Regulations
Paper Presentation
25 August 2020
10:30 - 11:00 hrs (GMT+7)
Krina Cayabyab, Speaker
This paper traces an independent vocal group’s continued agency in the face of disrupted structures caused by the current pandemic in the context of Metro Manila. Primarily working in the peripheries of the live music industry, this group has continued its presence through online media since the beginning of the quarantine period in March. The group’s remote musical activities presented online are outcomes that reflect the group’s construction of its “vision, identity and community” (Pacifico, Paul in Wolfe, Paula, 2020) during this time. These factors that continue to unfold have affected the group’s inclusion and decisions to participate in various endeavours online, such as fund-raising shows, collaborations, video posts on social media, and activity on streaming sites. In addition to the varying levels of participation in these activities, based on Pacifico’s three pillars, topical socio-economic, technological, political and industry currents are also crucial to the group’s agency. Employing autoethnography to describe these issues as independent, dependent, and confounding variables, this case study seeks to present an approach for understanding an independent music scene and its participants whose artistic agencies have migrated to the online stage amidst COVID-19.