Music is at the center of the intense social and communicational transformations that have been happening with the expansion of the Internet and the network society. This is the basis of the conversation about Music and the Internet: convergence and paradoxes in a changing landscape, which will take place at Livraria Ler Devagar, at Lx Factory, on May 12, between 3 pm and 5:30 pm, with free entry. Exhibitions, dialogues, video and live music are the ingredients of this session, which will be attended by nine members and guests from CESEM’s Music and Internet research group, NOVA FCSH Center for Sociology and Musical Aesthetics and Choir Sine Nomine.

With the spread of the Internet and mobile equipment, applications and digital content, the models and behaviors of musical production, circulation and listening have been radically reconfigured. The network society engenders new ways of relating to objects and sound and musical (and audiovisual) processes, in an immense field of creative possibilities whose exploration is still in its first steps. Music videos, films, sound cards, stock music, video games, documentaries, television contests, series, advertisements, radio broadcasts, media art, trailers, and so many other formats and content, are available on numerous internet platforms using a huge variety musical and sound proposals. These are perceived in all circumstances of our daily lives, in the kitchen or in line for the bus, traveling around the world or at home … But it will be the convergence, the interactivity, and the availability of means, contents, instruments, directly proportionate to the degree of freedom offered to producers and consumers? If we can all ‘post’ (and access) texts, music, images, is the Internet a democratic territory? Do we have the same type of access to information about Beyoncé, Beethoven, Luís de Freitas Branco and Luís Tinoco? And your music?

These and other issues will be discussed in the session Music and Internet: convergence and paradoxes in a changing landscape, managed by the research group in Music and Internet, from CESEM, Center for Studies in Sociology and Musical Aesthetics, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon. The session is aimed at the general public and establishes a path through several cases, problems and objects, such as the transformations in the role of the composer, interpreter, musicologist / author in the context of new communication models, the reconfiguration of the musical industries considering platforms such as the YouTube or Spotify, the extensive catalogs of free music, or the intensification of collaborative paradigms and transmedia products.

Speakers I André Malhado, Fábio Rodrigues, Joana Freitas, Júlia Durand, Marcelo Franca, Miguel Cintra (guest), Paula Gomes-Ribeiro, Tiago Fonseca: GTCC/CESEM.
Musical moment I Coro Sine Nomine – Video Games, by Luís Espírito Santo: Inês Nunes, Joana Freitas (sopranos); Isabel Pina, Filipa Cruz (contraltos); Frederico Batista, Luís Espírito Santo (tenors); Fábio Rodrigues, Pedro Matta Raposo (Bass).
Organization I GTCC / CESEM – NOVA FCSH and Ler Devagar – Lx Factory.