Paper short abstract:

The Post-Internet condition of constant connectivity characterised by 'Society 2.0' has become intrinsic to contemporary music practice. Self-representation and creative expression increasingly reflect Cyborgian characteristics of mutability, hybridity and networked identity.

Paper long abstract:

Matrix program of Destruction/Distraction/Extraction/Reconstruction on track for 3.1% growth for the year. Last system upgrade, OS NeoLib, showing signs of strain. Version 2017.12 featured same-sex marriage fix to restore normative structural models. Cybernetic feedback reports continued disruptions in meatspace sectors. Anthropologist studying music tech uptake sent to investigate. Music, as a site for self-expression and collective belonging, is shown to be entangled in emerging hybridities of post-internet identity. Armed with the latest intel, anthropologist agent investigates Waugh's (2017) notion of 'digital queering' that fuses posthuman ideas of adaptive hybridisation with technology with the gender deconstructions of queer theory. Agent confirms the options and comparative anonymity of the virtual are making it a space where multiple and mutable selves can flourish, the product of a situation where society, media, technology and bodies exist in a co-determining mesh of radical intimacy and fractured identity. Human units are being extended online across different ways of being, able to take and perform multiple personas, and with access to knowledge and experiences once confined to geography, class, ethnicity and gender. Music practice is stretching over multiple platforms of self-representation, locked to a live feed of social media and manifested in music that is both local and from everywhere simultaneously. Virtual experiences shown to be deeply integrated with meatspace subjectivities and collective formations. Agent to report at upcoming Anthropology conference. Situation being monitored closely.