Abstract
This paper investigates the network as a site for music performance; in particular, the
net’s performative conditions with the tightly linked notion of community are exposed through the medium of music as an intrinsic social practice. The paper provides a brief cultural overview of the development of the network metaphor before problematizing perspectival views of the network. By reflecting on the development of social web environments and its fragmentary nature, the authors examine the scattered viewpoints that characterize the network. The authors question the idealized view of an all-connectedness and position the human body as an interrupter of the network. In this line of thinking, the idealized models of connectivity and communication of the network become questioned. Instead, the authors look toward music performance and propose a re-thinking of this communication model and argue for a framework that, contrary to the often holistic approach to performing in the net, favors glances, fragments and desires.
Pedro Rebelo 