In collaboration with Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Rotterdam-based centre for architecture, design, and digital culture, Rewire is presenting the symposium ‘For the Record: In Another Setting’. This symposium will discuss design tactics for collective music experiences in and beyond pandemic times.

Live music performances and nightlife offer spaces for personal expression and collective experiences. During lockdown,video platforms ensured the continuation of gathering and communication outside our domestic environments, while live-streamed events and music performances enabled forms of solidarity and collectivity across platforms and time zones. From home-recorded concerts and gatherings on YouTube, Twitch or Instagram, to high-end productions and VR events in Minecraft or Fortnite, to Zoom parties such as Club Quarantine and raves in Second Life: how do these events and platforms make us rethink our relationship to music and space, and ultimately to each other?

For the Record: In Another Setting will explore design tactics for collective music experiences during the pandemic and beyond, and the changing roles and conditions for artists, music communities, designers, platforms, festivals and venues in creating proximity and community through distributed listening environments. Recent examples of web-based music performances and alternative tools and platforms for online expression will form the basis for a discussion on the audiovisual, spatial, social and political dimensions of online music practice.