A Sociology of Sound Technicians: Making the Show Go on

Description

If art, and especially music, has been framed in cultural sociology as a collective production relying on a variety of actors, technicians have been mostly framed as "support personnel" marginally impacting the meaning of a cultural production. This book analyzes sound technicians as technical intermediaries. They are autonomous actors of cultural production, and contribute in various ways to the meaning of live or recorded music performances, framed as a form of interaction rituals. From this analysis, it argues that artists should not be considered at the center of art worlds, and proposes a model including various types of actors in different roles, all necessary to produce a cultural object. Introduction: Sound Engineers as a Research Object Conceptualizing Technicians as Technical Intermediaries A Focus on Humans The Contribution of Sound Engineers to Music Method: A Comparative Approach of Sound Technicians in France and the Netherlands A Binary Comparison Between France and The Netherlands Institutional Comparison Comparison of Technicians’ Professional Trajectories Comparison of Working Practices in Different Artistic Contexts Thesis Layout Contents 1 Technical Intermediaries and the Agency of Objects: Questioning Generalized Symmetry Introduction: Producing Music and Meaning in Material Settings Material Agency in Art Worlds as the Work of Technical Intermediaries Method: Shadowing Sound Engineers Relational Technical Mediation: Changing Material Properties of Music Long-Term Collaboration Based on Pre-existing Work Relationships One-Time Collaboration With Strangers Non-relational Technical Mediation: Producing Homogeneous Sound Throughout the Room Material Constraints and Conventions: Technical Ability as the Locus of Agency in the Interaction Between People and Things Conclusion: Music as Meaning, and Technology 2 A Comparative Approach to Making a Living From Sound Engineering Sound Technicians and the Baumol Law Comparing the Structure of Two Live Pop Music Fields Live Pop Music Venues’ Economic Models Subsidies Autonomous Incomes Employment Externalization The De-commodification of Freelancers’ Labour Market as an Answer to the Effects of Baumol’s Law Conclusion 3 Creative Craft in Music: Careers and Roles of Sound Technicians Theory: Temporary Teams of Producers Method: Thematic Analysis and QCA The Career Structure of Technicians: Vocational Impulses, Education, and Constellations of Jobs In Musical Performances, There is No Such Thing as a Purely Technical Task “Artistic” Jobs “Technical” Jobs Non-technical Jobs and Technical Jobs in Non-artistic Contexts Nationally Bounded Institutional Differences: Education Programs and Access to “artistic” Positions Differences in Education Programs Distribution of “Artistic” and “Technical” Tasks Discussion Conclusion 4 The Power of Sound Technicians over the Script: Negotiations around the Shape of the Performance’s Object Theory: Music Genres of Performances Method: Ethnography and QCA Distribution of Authority over the Performance’s Object Shape do Follow the Genre Boundaries Drawn by Lena Scene-Based Genre Industry-Based Genre Traditionalist Genre Avant-garde Discussion Conclusion 5 Group Engagement of Technicians and Audiences in Concerts Theory Method Compelling Project Direction Frequency and Informality of Interactions Individual Involvement Audience’s Feedback Compelling Project Directions: Actors Adding Layers of Meaning to the Performance Artists Bringing the Audience in Cultural Intermediaries Bringing the Audience in Society Bringing the Audience in Informality of Interactions in Technical Teams Individual Involvement Audience Feedback Discussion Conclusion Conclusion: Technical Ability, Art Worlds, and Performance Perspective Technical Ability as the Governing Principle of Technical Intermediaries Theoretical Contributions of this Thesis Limits and Perspectives Glossary References