Jedność czasu zamiast jedności miejsca? Rozumienie żywości w czasie pandemii Covid-19

Marta Kupis

doi:10.31648/mcsc.9594

Published: 2025-06-27

No. 21 (2025)

Unity of time replacing unity of space? Understanding “liveness” during Covid-19 pandemic

Marta Kupis

Media - Culture - Social Communication

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.31648/mcsc.9594

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic had a huge impact on all forms of human activity, including culture. Within this last category, live events, such as music festivals, are of particular interest, as they rely on direct contact between performers and audience united in one place. Sanitary restrictions limited the possibility of such meetings, forcing festivals organizers to cancel or postpone their events. However, another way of dealing with the pandemic situation could be observed. It consisted of using new technologies to connect performers with the audience. The festivals were held in either fully virtual or hybrid formats. These solutions helped maintain a sense of emotional bond between festivals and participants, as well as reduce the financial problems of the organizers. However, the question should be asked how the situation could have influenced the understanding of what exactly a “live” event is? Considering that many organizers declare their willingness to preserve the virtual element in future editions of festivals, it can be assumed that this reflection covers not only the special situation of a pandemic, but touches upon deeper transformations in understanding of “liveness” in the era of new media and hybrid reality. The use of a combination of real and virtual reality will be analyzed on the example of three Polish festivals: Pol'and'Rock, Unsound and Sacrum/Profanum. Based on the research, it can be concluded that the “liveness” of the hybrid era is based less on the unity of meeting in a place, and more on the unity of timely connections online.

Keywords:

liveness, music festival, Covid-19, Internet, hybrid reality

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Kupis, M. (2025). Unity of time replacing unity of space? Understanding “liveness” during Covid-19 pandemic. Media - Culture - Social Communication, (21). https://doi.org/10.31648/mcsc.9594

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.