Affiliation:
1. Music, University of Liverpool
Abstract
Abstract
Elizabeth Hunt’s chapter focuses on the long-running concert series Video Games Live (VGL), which raises issues of gamification for both the audience and the performers. Hunt argues that the VGL concerts subvert traditional concert codes by inciting the carnivalesque through gamification of the concert mechanics and through audience participation on stage. This is demonstrated through examination of the VGL performance of Space Invaders (Taito, 1978), Frogger (Konami, 1981), and Guitar Hero (Harmonix, 2005). It is through such features that the audience member becomes a voluntary and active coproducer of the concert; this form of “participatory spectatorship” helps to break down the boundary between high art and low art erected, in part, by the traditional rules of orchestral concerts.
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