Paper short abstract:

Using the example of video-blogs this paper seeks to discuss how proximity is created through sensuality and mediality. Furthermore, it focuses on the relation between performances in digital spaces and pop cultural events, like festivals, and their cultural-industrial framing.

Paper long abstract:

Even if parts of the Goth Scene seem to be nostalgic - especially due to the aesthetic iterations of past aeras such as Victorian and Medieval ages - or at least by the insistence of music and styles of the 1980s - digital cultures have nevertheless a strong effect on the scene, mainly when it comes to events.

YouTube user Reikon DeVore starts his video blog about the Wave Gotik Treffen 2017, the largest goth festival in Germany, with a short atmospheric introduction. By use of a selfie-stick and talking head-on to the camera, he expresses: "So far we did no recording like usually of how we got our ribbons or did our make-up (...). Just because it is way too hot, we're all pretty lazy ... and everything is pretty shitty in general."

This paper focuses, as outlined in the example above, on the sensual experiences of the everyday atmosphere at the festival by the mediality of Video-Blogs - by the use of cuts, sounds, camera-work or display details. Hypothetically, it assumes that through the medial form as well as the participation in sensual moments, meaning is performatively constructed and negotiated, that goes beyond the visual self-presentation of the acteurs. The hypothesis, that will be discussed, is that the produced digital proximity is also be used by the cultural industry or the festival organisation and contributes to the process of event culture.