AW

ISP
VUW
VW E
2016

Haunted Nostalgia - virtual ethnomusicology and vaporwave

AW

--------------------I had to Google it.

A few YouTube videos came up with softly coloured thumbnails, followed by a link to the Vaporwave
subreddit. I had been on Reddit before and knew of it as an open-forum website.
Blue, unclicked links to make my way through.
The subreddit itself is organized with its homepage essentially being the most popular links of the past 24
hours. Users hyper-link posts to other websites, and other users can either upvote or respond to the link.
The vaporwave subreddit generates a high amount of traffic, that is initially obvious from the dates posted. I
had a thought that this research might not actually be too difficult, if in this community hub the most
popular posts are categorically organized.
This thought didnt stick around for long.
At first, I wasn't sure how to integrate myself into the community. It was more difficult than going up and
talking to somebody face-to-face. Everybody is just links, media, names, information.
I began to think about the semantic-imagery of the posts. No matter what the link is, be it to an album, a
website or images, the visuals are captivating. Everything is saturated in soft colours, with glitchy images of
beaches, forests, city skylines, sunsets, urban sprawls, neon lights. I wasn't sure what to make of it - two
highly contrasting worlds, nature and city, both projected and reimagined through digital modification.
Idealised, rose-tinted signs.
The subreddit header reads music optimized for abandoned shopping malls.
I dont get it.
I decide to make a post, to reach out to the community. Hopefully to generate discussion and have someone
help explain all this to me.
I dont want to seem too out of the loop, so I try to incorporate some esoteric style that I have noticed from
the message-board.
i'm looking for someone to talk to me about their experiences of vaporwave and their interaction with the
community

online. it's part of an ~ a e s t h e t i c ~ ethnomusicology honours research project

To my surprise my enquiry is gladly received. 22 users upvote my post with 12 users replying.
One

user an_altar_of_plagues sends me a link to a vaporwave-themed website, sunbleach.net. The same sort
of idealized paradisiacal imagery is everywhere. There are reviews, links to new albums, interviews,
(image-based) artworks and vaporwave news.

There is an album cover that catches my eye. It seems to be fully representative of the vaporwave aesthetic.
Japanese neon lights, resting on top of a purple-covered skyline.
I need to go to another website to listen to the album - https://dreamcatalogue.bandcamp.com/. Vaporwave
aesthetic and albums everywhere! A lot to add to my digital library.
Dream Catalogue is an independent vaporwave label, describing its approach as installing dreams into
your brain est. 2814.
I dim my lights (a usual occurrence when I want to focus on music), I turn down the brightness of my
laptop, and begin to play by 2814.
Ambient sounds ring through, Im not sure of the instrumentation. The sounds carry weight through reverb,
a heavy sonic atmosphere. It takes me awhile to get into it.
I close my eyes, I picture the imagery from the album covers and aesthetics that have been so prevalent. I
hear a noise that reminds me of a video game. In the massive ambience I reflect inward. I get nostalgic,
thinking of when I was younger. Something about this music sounds old, but new. I cant quite put my finger
on it.
Is that the point?
I begin to think about how to frame this in my research, and the feeling is gone.
Its ethereal, esoteric, but most of all, it is fleeting.

------------------------

I had to Google it.

No plane, train or automobile could take me there. But it was a longer journey than I expected. Not in terms of
travel, but in terms of understanding.
Everywhere I went, I heard talks of the virtual plaza. I asked those around me where I could find it, and if they
could lead me to it.
I had to find my way to them, they do not attempt to be recognized by all.
They congregate in shared-spaces, and although they may be here, I cannot see them. I see as much as
they are willing to project. Holograms, ghosts. Words and images remain. Faces are replaced with names. But
not like names I am used to.
Utopian imagery lines the walls. Japanese characters are common-place, but they dont seek to be
understood. Faded soft pastel colours overload the palette. Virtual neon lights guide the way.
I went in circles in my search for the virtual plaza. It does not mean the same thing to everyone.
What am I looking for? Nothing seems to connect to anything else. Its all so ambiguous, but its so dreamy. Im
enveloped by interest, floating through projections of this quixotic space. This world is far-removed from my
own home. But also far-removed from anybody elses.

I still dont know what I am looking for.

I need a chaperone.
I make a plea, sprawling onto the walls in this definitively-themed space of indefinite ideals.
i'm looking for someone to talk to me about their experiences of vaporwave and their interaction with the
community online. it's part of an ~ a e s t h e t i c ~ ethnomusicology honours research project

an_altar_of_plagues directs me to his hub. I teleport there instantaneously.

Im still looking.
Apparently if you cant think about it too much. Or stare too long.
You will miss it.
I still dont know if Ive found it.
A picture of Japanese neon lights, resting on top of a purple-covered skyline catches my eye.

by 2814
I listen.

Suddenly the visual is complimented by the audible. The senses play off each other. I cant smell, taste or touch
this world but I am beginning to feel it.
Time slows.
I hear waves crashing into marble pillars. Or can I see them? Im not too sure. The reverb-soaked strings drawl
out, howling to the Gods or anyone who will listen. The space seems infinite, but only when my eyes are
closed.
The music comes from Dream Catalogue described as installing dreams into your brain.
I close my eyes again. I begin to dream.
I hear sounds that remind me of home - noises pop out of the sonic atmosphere reminding me of youth. Is that a
Playstation start -up noise? The sound has been stretched and contorted. It doesnt sound the same as it did
when I first heard it, but the vastness of the sonic atmosphere that the sound echoes in, makes it feels as though
I am listening to my memory. I am invoked with nostalgia. The slow-moving ambient noise develops and
envelops me.
Im comforted, but detached. I feel alone in the expanse, but warm. I drift back into my own thoughts. Idealized
memory, evoked through vaporwave.
The sounds form monoliths next to me, dissipating and forming at will. Made of pixels they would crash to the
ground with a hit of a ride cymbal slowed 200 times. Its otherworldly. I was surrounded by soft pastel colours.
A matte finish.
Am I there? Is this the virtual plaza? In the back spaces of my mind?

My thoughts lead me back to why I am here in the first place.

Research
The plaza dissolves.
You cant stare too long.
I still dont know if I have found it.
Its ethereal, esoteric, but most of all, it is fleeting.
----------------------

In these two vignettes about the same situation, I have tried to demonstrate aspects of the
world of vaporwave. I use the term world as vaporwave means many different things to different
consumers, offering multiple levels of engagement - all transferred through virtual technology. In this
essay I will explain how these levels of engagement depend on the individual's experience and personal
context.
This vignette is broken into two parts: the definitive, practical, physical engagement; and the
metaphorical, emotive, abstract description of my personal interaction with the vaporwave genre as a
musical form. The reason for this, is that I wanted to illustrate that an analysis focussing on the purely
abstract nature of virtual media to the consumer subverts the importance of the real-world context of
the user, and all of the baggage that that brings. Contrastingly, if one was to focus just on how a user
interacts with the genre they would miss the important evocative connection it forms. Integral to this
essay, is how virtual communities can form by individuals connecting over shared perspectives, in often
highly different social or political climates. Online, some are attached solely to the visual aesthetic,
some are deeply intertwined with the music scene. Most hover somewhere in the spaces inbetween.
Both operate in a virtual world of contested negotiation.
In this essay I will attempt to conduct a well-rounded ethnological approach to the virtual
musical genre that is vaporwave to demonstrate important approaches to virtual ethnomusicological
study. The genre is virtual, as it is conceived, accessed and maintained in a virtual space. This will be the
main focus of the essay - partly illuminating how music in virtual space can occur and operate, as well
as how we might write about this phenomenon as ethnomusicologists. I move that this is an
increasingly important aspect of ethnomusicological study. As global processes become increasingly
embedded in virtual technology this gives access for musicians and consumers alike to create a new
space to produce, disseminate and access various musical forms with other users online. I will seek to
show movement in ethnomusicological theory needs to place increased importance in combining

methodologies from other disciplines to conduct fieldwork in new virtual communities. We need to
embrace conducting study in new fields laying out foundational approaches and relevant theoretical
aspects as we move forward. This essay is to demonstrate and outline theoretical approaches to
conducting virtual fieldwork in online spaces, using a non-geographic based community that operates
in a world of online negotiation to produce musical forms, and communities.
Movements in studying virtual communities are well-underway. And it is here that it is
beneficial to bring in inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of music online, as this is a concept that
has repercussions in many different fields. It quickly becomes apparent that virtual technology such as
the internet offers users and consumers multifarious ways to engage and operate in shared online
spaces. Web 2.0, the most commonly used form of the internet maintains itself by being continuously
modified by all users in a participatory and collaborative fashion (Haenlein & Kaplan 2010: 61) and it
is therefore of worthwhile study to understand the processes of continuous and collaborative
modification in music study. The idea of contested negotiation becomes prevalent here in looking
towards what rules and structures dignify what is successful and appropriate participation and
collaboration, and where this occurs online. Rather than divulge too deep into explanations and
histories of virtual technology, I wish to highlight the most significant aspects of virtual music
technology that consumers operate in today, and how these musical communities are negotiated and
formed.
In 2005 composer and musicologist Andrew Hugill attempted to outline the different types of
internet music, that is, music disseminated through the internet. He writes that the term internet
music has a common conception of music that is distributed through the internet, commonly linked to
downloadable files such as .mp3s and .wavs. Although Hugill is quick to connect the agency of the
users as a driving force of different types of music, internet music in his conception is directly tied to
the processes of the musical file/work itself. His working definition is as such -music in which the
Internet is integral either to its composition, or dissemination, or both (Hugill 2005: 431). Although he
acknowledges the role of internet culture in the construction of internet music, he does not inherently
include these in his classifications. Rather, the classifications include the internets role in music-making,
instead than that of the musician. This fits nicely with a practical understanding on virtual music, but
does little to illuminate personal usage and meaning of the people producing the music. His types of
internet music are as follows - music that uses the network to connect physical spaces or instruments;
music that is created or performed in virtual environments, or uses virtual instruments; music that
translates into sound aspects of the network itself; music that uses the Internet to enable collaborative
composition or performance; and music that is delivered via the Internet, with varying degrees of user
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interactivity (Hugill 2005: 433). In the types of internet music that Hugill lays out, we begin to see a
progression of music communities embeddedness in virtual spaces. It is only the last type that we see
user interactivity. What then of these users? Hugill writes of how they operate in a liminal space of
profound influence without purporting to have any effect on the music itself (Hugill 2005: 430). This
is inherently limiting. These definitions of internet music are overarching branches of which many
genres or musical forms may exist in. Although these types help structure process, they do very little
to define what, or who, internet music actually consists of. In fact as I will attempt to show, the lines
are increasingly more blurred than Hugill initially states.
In the same year of Hugills publication, Dante Tanzi published the article Language, Music,
and Resonance in Cyberspace. Tanzi discusses three aspects of merit in worthwhile musical cyberspace
study: 1) how a sonic object is realised in cyberspace; 2) the sonic objects reception in online
communication; and 3) mutations that may affect the dynamics of perception (Tanzi 2005: 541). This
appears to be a deeper take on Hugill, calling for analysis of what causes the processes of internet music.
Rather than just users bringing context to these processes, Tanzi writes that through these processes
and users differing contexts the musical and audio contents can be repeatedly re-contextualised
(ibid.). This implies a human agency in cyberspace that isnt inherently connected to the makeup of
cyberspace itself, but is manifested in regards to pre-existing context of the user. This agency is where I
believe ethnomusicological study in cyberspace should take place. In determining agency amongst
virtual technology users, the machine and the user cannot be separated.
In 1974 Stanley Milgram wrote about human responsibility. He carried out an experiment
inquiring into how humans could act against common morality when compelled by authority. He called
this an agentic shift in which humans transfer consequence away from themselves to some devoid
abstract agent, ridding themselves of responsibility. (Milgram 1974, 83-89). In 1993 Neil Postman
echoed these sentiments, in reference to machines as authority. He argues that as the metaphor human
as machine has intruded our everyday language this signals a change in common interpretation of
authority. This kind of language is not merely picturesque anthropomorphism. It reflects a profound
shift in perception about the relationship of computers to humans (Postman 1993: 114). Postman
used Milgrams agentic shift to argue that humans can potentially transfer responsibility to abstract
agents. Postman had apprehensions about the increasing intertwinement of machines and technology
in the social world, fearing that too much control on computer technology could begin to reduce
human agency. It is interesting then to consider the role of authority and agency in the formation of
communities online, and the makeup of the internet. Although it quickly becomes apparent that we are
not embedded in this machine-reliant dystopian agency that Postman predicts. Advances in
technological modification have changed the the role of the individual online, from that of being just a
user to that of a contributor. Such is evident with the structuring of Web 2.0 in itself and its continuous
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modification based on a participatory culture. Its hard to see this agentic shift when users, therefore
humans, remain the agents themselves. This is not to folly Postman, however. The mechanics of online
accessibility mean that human agency online does not exist the same as it does offline. When agency is
operating in predisposed virtual structures, the veil of connectivity to a non-geographic space
inherently disconnects the user from existing entirely in one space or another (are they inside or outside
the computer?). This hybridic agency exposes the liminal spaces that users exist in, but it is also
contributes to the constant restructuring of online communities and processes.
This signals a move from primary model of the internet, a consumption model, designed to
disseminate information tied to capitalistic enterprise. Sociologists Andrew Feenberg and Maria
Bakardjieva discuss movements in models of use for the internet arguing for a more direct community
model for the internet, opposed to the consumption model (Bakardjieva & Feenberg 2004: 13). This
is to move away from risks of unbalanced power relations online and the control of information.
Bakardjieva draws from Feenbergs idea of democratic rationalization, narrowing the community
model towards a virtual togetherness shaped by human agency (Bakardjieva & Feenberg 2004: 1517).
This virtual togetherness gives users interpretive flexibility in which they can exercise their intentions
online within deterministic technical constraints allowing users to mould their online identity through
their own content only limited by the virtual infrastructure. Feenberg argues that this can challenge
harmful consequences, undemocratic power structures, and barriers to communication rooted in
technological design (ibid.). Through participation and connectivity, users can continuously reframe
the online world that they choose to prescribe to.
In the frame of this essay I will be looking into just one online community that shares virtual
togetherness, which is solely reliant on a community model and participatory culture. The vaporwave
community is delocalized geographically and maintains itself purely online. This makes it an interesting
area of study moving forward in virtual ethnography. The community itself is not entirely original, but
built on many themes and concepts from both on and offline. It shows a reimagining of processes
towards music and culture across borders (physical and metaphysical) that questions the methodologies
we as ethnomusicologists have. Although ethnomusicologists remain aware of the need to incorporate
virtual aspects in their work (ranging from mere e-mail correspondence to actual virtual fieldwork) the
nascent ethnomusicological literature on the Internet concerns the use of technology to distribute the
results of fieldwork, not the fieldwork method itself (i.e., Lange 2001), and studies of virtual
communities that exist only online (i.e., Lysloff 2003; K. Miller 2007) (Cooley, Meizel, & Syed 2008:
91). Through a case study on vaporwave, I intend to discuss approaches to conducting fieldwork
online, in particular of a virtual community that only exists online. I wish to show how study on the
community of vaporwave illuminates many underpinnings that are going to be increasingly relevant
when engaging with virtual musical communities and therefore virtual fieldwork.
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The question then arises, how do we conceptualize community and culture in virtual spaces? I
have outlined that framing context and agency in terms of operating in a virtual landscape is complex,
and brings with it a necessary ambiguity in order for it to be able to be discussed. Although this by no
means is a comfortable starting point in order to frame an area of study. Ethnomusicologists are still
wrestling with this idea as the multifarious range of engagements online highly differ among the
personal context of the user. For this essay, I will continue with the working dialogue of Rene Lysloff,
and the idea of technoculture. The term itself arose from sociologist Andrew Ross in 1991. He coined
the term to deal with communities that have emerged in response to changing media and information
technologies, forms characterized by technological adaption, avoidance, subversion, or resistance
(Ross 1991:3). This initially implies a large scope of study, and is not limited to virtual work. Lysloff
continued a dialogue of technoculture, framing it as an understanding of technology not simply as the
social and personal intrusion of scientific hardware into authentic human experience but as a cultural
phenomenon that permeates and informs almost every aspect of human existenceincluding forms
of musical knowledge and practice (Lysloff 2003: 32). This sentence brings with it a lot of ideas to
decompact before moving forward. The first, what is authentic human experience? The scare quotes
are telling. Lysloff here uses the term to encompass how technologys role in the human experience is
now becoming intertwined, and that human experience is affected by the role of technology.
Technology is now a very real part of the way we go about our lives, thus real and authentic. Although
Lysloff goes further - we must understand technology as a cultural phenomenon that cannot be
detached from human existence. It is important to understand technology not as a mechanical
imposition on our lives but as a fully cultural process, soaked through with social meaning that only
makes sense in the contexts of familiar kinds of behaviour (ibid.).
Conducting a history on vaporwave (or any virtual music for that matter) is a rather difficult
process. Part of this lies in the fact that the malleability of virtual genres makes it increasingly difficult
to trace a definable perspective. As I wish to emphasise the liminal nature of the genre I do not seek to
project one definitive narrative. What can be discussed are the identifiable tropes of the genre and
lasting themes. The term vaporwave is understood to have roots in the term vaporware. Vaporware
refers to a promised software project that is marketed and advertised but does not yet exist. This
exemplifies one of the fundamental ethos of the genre - the awareness of technological modification
that attracts users and consumers, yet is never really fulfilled. In an era of continuous technological
modification and informational oversaturation, new musical trends steeped in new technology use this
technology to draw from concepts of nostalgia, taking a fully self-aware approach to depict the ironic
nature of the technological world - as we grow with technology, we still long for the past. The visual
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realm of technology has changed the representation of how experience is understood. Adam Trainer
acknowledged that the personal and affective are undeniably tethered to our negotiation of culture
through increasingly mediated experiences, which now occur predominantly in a digital realm (Trainer
2016: 409). The open access of Web 2.0 has widened the ability to access and communicate in social
spaces, becoming ingrained in the everyday social practices for much of the world with internet access.
The saturation of technology coupled by a desire to revisit the past, vaporwave attempts to connect
personal attachments to past forms while pushing the sources of that nostalgia into less-recognizable
musical performances (ibid.). These musical performances renegotiated relationships between the
artist, technology and the listener but also blurred the lines between creative sincerity and irony
(ibid.). Trainer argues that the concept of virtual extends to not just the use of technology in our
everyday, but also to our understandings of memory, dream and subjectivity.
Embedded in the very nature of vaporwave processes is the intention of self-awareness by the
listener. Vaporwave has to exist in a context to be understood. This context, one of many to the user,
exists in a virtual space challenging users to make sense of an irony-infused technological world. At the
beginning of this essay I wrote two vignettes about my initial access with vaporwave. In order to
discuss this genre, we must discuss where the main formations for this genre take place. Interestingly,
the genre cant be tied to a specific geographic location. The themes that exist in vaporwave arise from
media technology, globalisation and capitalism that have affected societies throughout the world - albeit
in different ways. For example, capitalism in rural Australia operates in different structures than that of
Israel (two places in which contributors to this essay, and vaporwave fans live) as cultural politics
world-wide have affected different communities differently. Without deliberating on the state of
cultural politics globally, what often has tied these users together has been media forms (such as
marketing and advertising) projecting idealized imagery of the state of the community. For many users,
this has been ongoing through exposure to the internet, television and global media (and thus
advertising) for much of their lives.
Through the vaporwave subreddit, I kept in an open dialogue with twelve users whom use the
page as a means of accessing and disseminating vaporwave music and information. I used Reddit as the
headquarters of my virtual fieldwork. Vaporwave producer Wolfenstein OSX outlays how the conception
of the genre formed through internet forums such as the vaporwave subreddit in his Vaporwave: A Brief
History YouTube video (Wos X 2015: 0.45). The subreddit is a site (both website and place) that
maintains and negotiates the genres ideals through the inner-structuring of the website. Users can link
to external websites, or create self posts. Most common are music posts, to either an artist's
Bandcamp or Soundcloud although many posts are devoted to the aesthetic of vaporwave. The
aesthetic is of great importance to the genre and many posts link to images or videos (such as a 1980s
10

computer advert) that are deemed suited to evoke the spirit of vaporwave. Users can upvote or
downvote posts of their choosing, with the most popular ones being the most visible (at the top of the
front page). The structure of the website Reddit itself contributes to a democratic rationalization as an
open-forum, and is therefore an important site of virtual community study, as negotiation of ideals
within the genre can unfold in front of you. As of time of writing [November 2016] there were 45,986
users subscribed to the vaporwave subreddit, a large hub of the vaporwave community. Of the users of
vaporwave that contributed to this project, the main demographic were males aged between 18-24.
Each contributor signalled an engagement with virtual media for much of their lives, generally from
television as a child and the internet in their adolescence. It appears the firmer the engagement with
media, the more the user evokes meaning out of ironicized media imagery. But this is not black and
white. Users discussed how engagement with vaporwave felt as a personal experience, evoked through
someone elses projection.
from nivvd via /r/Vaporwave sent 9 days ago
feelings of escapism, wanting to be in the world that a vw song can create even if it is based on someone else's
interpretation, but that's the beauty of the genre, taking someone's art piece and reinterpreting it

from Opstoper via /r/Vaporwave sent 9 days ago

/u/nivvd said escapism which is a brilliant word for Vaporwave. For me honestly vaporwave makes me feel
comfortable, there's something warm and welcoming to me with the 80's style synths and such.

from alitales via /r/Vaporwave sent 9 days ago

I mostly listen to the utopian or atmospheric sides of vaporwave. The atmospheric stuff puts me in a really
calm place and takes away my anxiety, almost makes feel kinda sleepy. (I've fallen asleep to
and various t e l e p a t h albums countless times.) The utopian/synthwave/more jazzy stuff,
things like Eyeliner or luxury elite or (it's not really vaporwave but whatever) Duett's Borderline is good for
night drives and listening to at work.

It becomes apparent in these responses that vaporwave constructs a surreal world for the
listeners, even though they may be directly aware of the falsified construction of this world through the
musicians lens.
from Jewrusalem sent 1 month ago
This sub is plagued by persistent trolls, most of whom probably used to make vaporwave. The VCC group on
Facebook is the only place I've come across where people discuss vaporwave in a near-civilised manner,
almost certainly because the veil of anonymity is nullified by the platform

This response demonstrates the particular nature about virtual constructions of negotiated
genres. User Jewrusalem acknowledges the anonymous nature of identity projection online, in which
presence is only inferred and often brings contestations which are not always productive. Rather, some
11

users troll the community, attempting to undermine them yet may even be producers who used to
make the genre. On Facebook, in which the profile of the real, offline individual is depicted,
anonymity is nullified and therefore is often more constructive. But this does not always enhance the
very essence of vaporwave that often transfers meaning, away from the actual real and into a mythical
real.

from ScarlettSerenity via /r/Vaporwave sent 8 days ago

It puts me into a mythical past that I never lived but only got through the old media that makes up the genre,
but when put into a coherent whole (be it music, an image, whatever) puts me into a reconstructed version of
that world only from the remnants left to me.
That and for the more atmospheric and somber sides of vaporwave that pull more on the cyberpunk roots, I
get this feeling of being let down / scared by what the current age of technology has brought us, while at the
same time being amazed by it
...and also the stuff that everyone says about cultural consciousness, consumerism, etc...it makes me feel all
of that as well, it's a very complex response for me.
The one thing I don't get is the sense of comfort and escapism that others mention in this thread, to me it can
often be downright terrifying.

User ScarlettSerenity demonstrates that the essence of vaporwave can often mean different
things for different individuals.

from hitclipshifi sent 1 month ago

Though its become a bit of a punchline now, the supposed radical political underpinnings of vaporwave were
something to which I was also drawn. Ive been a leftist for as long as Ive been politically active and
vaporwaves cultural critique of nostalgia, consumerism, and corporate-curated environments was a very
attractive ideological framework for me.

from Milanchic sent 1 month ago

What I enjoy in vaporwave the most is a sense of being lost in thought but reassured by a feeling that
everything will be alright. However, vaporwave is much more than that. It can be also invigorating, especially
if futurfunk is considered to be vaprowave, and sometimes I listen to more upbeat stuff (Saint Pepsi, Blank
Banshee etc.) when I go running. I listen to vaporwave mixed with other music most of the time when I'm at
home, and when I'm working I like to play more atmospheric/ambiental stuff since it helps me concentrate.
I like the genre because I also think it is fine with being a digital thing only, meaning I wouldn't need to go to
concerts to see other people stand around or barely move or meetups to talk to other people talk about...
Which is another thing, what are the things vaporwave people usually talk about and what are their interests,
beside aesthetics and which album/song they liked?

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These responses from the users go deeper than just the music being enjoyable, or certain
musical stylistic traits that the users connect to. Rather, they feed into a more broad concept, something
that has taken place amongst contemporary art since the early 21st Century. Much of the produced art
in the beginning of this century has had a fascination and preoccupation with the past. We can think of
the successful Netflix series Stranger Things (2016) which depicts 1980s small town Indiana, or even the
reproduction of older movies depicting the future, such as Star Trek, Star Wars and Ghostbusters (all
2016). Even much pop music shows a fascination with its past eras as shown in Simon Reynolds 2010
book Retromania: pop culture's addiction to its own past. Grafton Tanner, who in late 2016 published
(perhaps the first) full-length book devoted to vaporwave and its concepts, associated this reproduction
of past art principles and concepts with Jacques Derridas critique of global capitalism known as
hauntology from Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning & the New International. The
basic premise of hauntology is that there exists no point of origin, but rather (the non-thing) is
represented by a ghost neither alive nor dead, neither present or absent. Tanner signifies the presence
of hauntological thought in artistic production by surveying the history of the most prevalent cultural
mode of the last thirty years - postmodernism (Tanner 2016: 38). By drawing from the works of Linda
Hutcheon and Fredric Jameson, Tanner upholds the view that history is unknowable but art helps
facilitate our depictions of the past, both presenting and complicating a historical reality (ibid.).
Hutcheon writes that [postmodern films] suggestthere is no directly and naturally accessible past
real for us today: we can only know and construct the past through its traces, its representations
(Hutcheon 1993: 113). Postmodernism, then, is a relevant political artistic practise through subverting
expectations about art and culture. It challenges art by deconstructing everything that came before
while still remaining self-reflexive (Tanner 38: 2016).
For the listeners of vaporwave, the meaning evoked comes through an inward personal
experience, challenged or connected through a hauntological reality, a fictional past and idealized
future. How then, do these feelings transfer through a digital platform, such as the vaporwave
subreddit? Well they all connect. Digital technology directly feeds into the evocation from vaporwave
through its dissemination. Earlier in this essay I mentioned that the veil of connectivity to a
non-geographic space inherently disconnects the user from existing entirely in one space or another,
and this liminal space is of worthwhile study. The parameters of the liminal space are often difficult to
identify. Randall Packer, in his article Composing with Media discusses the artwork The Media
Deconstruction Kit which recontextualizes the individual's experience of reality through a live
broadcast television and real-time manipulation re-broadcasted on the internet thus subverting and
disrupting the authenticity of the one-to-many paradigm of the medium (Packer 2005: 515). Packer
discusses how the blurring of the real and the virtual, the local and the remote, the corporeal and the
13

ephemeral brings a third space, a hybrid of local and remote architectures, where our perception of
time and space collapses (Packer 2005: 522). Packer argues this signals a paradigm shift where linear
concepts of time and space are replaced by the notion of an indeterminate expanse of user-defined
events (ibid.). The user thus becomes part of the realization of their work, through their own
experiences and contexts inside a virtual technology. So when user ScarlettSerenity states that she
doesnt understand other individuals experiences of the same work, it is because the work for them,
when projected through multimedia platforms, evokes a false sense of reality through the veil of the
internet becoming user-defined.
The false sense of reality through ontological hauntology is projected through agreed-upon,
democratic semantics and distinctions for the genre, even though it may result in differing experiences
for the user. There is a reason that user Milanchic questions what are the things vaporwave people
usually talk about and what are their interests?, because the experiences highly differ according to
personal context. Engagement and exposure to media technology is the prerequisite, yet it may be the
only one necessary to find some sort of meaning in vaporwave. Yet users still congregate in the virtual
plaza, which can only exist outside of a tangible, real, reality. The digital platform of the internet,
reliant on a visual aesthetic, is integral to the makeup of vaporwave. The semantics and visuals of the
community and genre are as integral as the music itself. In his introductory chapter in Music as Social
Life, Thomas Turino discusses musical signs and meaning. Using philosopher Charles Sanders Peirces
theory of signs known as semiotics, Turino states a sign can be anything that is perceived by an
observer which stands for or calls to mind something else and by doing so creates an effect in the
observer (Turino 2008: 5). Although language is the most common form of signs, Peirce offers three
ways in which people connect with signs, as Icons, Indexes, and Symbols. Icon, the act of interpreting
an object through resemblance, or association to a type is the most common form of semiotic
meaning transferred through the internet and popular culture. In Marta Kolodziejskas article Symbol
of the Cross in Popular Culture: an Analysis of the Use and Transformation of the Symbol in Machina
Magazine she discusses the use of religious symbols in pop culture. She argues that from the overtly
recognized nature of religious symbols such as the cross, this can generate new significance through
individual dispositions (Kolodziejska 2013: 217). In the case of vaporwave, internet communities use
the overtly recognised nature of commercial or evocative symbols, saturated in irony, to produce new
meanings of meta-hyper contextualized symbolism. However the interesting part is how these symbols
can generate affect or effect within the reader. Marta states that in order to read the symbols, a special
kind of knowledge is needed. In the case of commercial symbols, I believe that the meaning enacted is
through the knowledge of commercial embeddedness in popular culture, and the infrastructures of the
internet. Yet not everyone understands the symbols the samerecognition does not entail a single
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interpretation of the symbol, since interpreting encompasses individual dispositions of the reader, as
well as the social and historical context (ibid.). Although individual dispositions may result in multiple
interpretations, part of the meaning that is produced is in recognition of the multiple interpretations.
Vaporwave can only maintain itself from direct self-awareness that the genre exists in a landscape full
of individually understood semantics. The genre is reactionary, purposefully abstracting and ironicizing
functions of the internet and popular culture. Everyones subjective experience is slightly different,
dependent on their own history and culture (outside of the internet) yet remaining aware of the
infrastructures online. This results in a virtual togetherness, an experience that is shared based on
multiple interpretations. It is the ultimate inside-joke. Once we are aware of it, we feel as though we
are directly involved. The meaning is transferred through signs and semantics, most commonly in the
form of icons. The reason for this, is that icons do not directly connect with a source. They rely on
subjective interpretation from the reader. This subjective interpretation, when shared in a realm
contested meaning lets users feel as though they get it, generating meaning for the individual. Joshua
Ottum connects this with vaporwave, discussing how these semantics illuminate falsified
representations of the real thing [so] the listener begins to question the very idea of real. In context,
these sounds beckon the user in and out of virtual and digital experiences (Ottum 2015: 55).
The contested negotiation of vaporwave through sites like the vaporwave subreddit is
therefore not a contest at all. Rather, it upholds the highest valued, and thus most easily accessible parts
of the community. This liminal space is the most integral formation of meaning for vaporwave, which
is reliant on an understanding of global contexts of media technology and influence, complimented by
the personal perspective of the user in which they bring their own contexts creating a user-defined
event. Users and vaporwave musicians alike exist and portray themselves in this space, questioning the
idea of the real musician. Feminist Studies scholar Donna Haraways Cyborg Theory from her chapter
A Cyborg Manifesto states that new technological developments in the late 20th (and presumably early
21st) Century have blurred the lines of difference between the natural and the artificial (Haraway 2001:
149) contributing to the liminal musician. She uses the imagery of a cyborg, a non-gendered
theoretical ideology as an opportunity to view the hybridized nature of the machine and organism as we
become increasingly intertwined with technology in our daily life (ibid.). This increased blurring of
dichotomies has meant that ideas of mind and body, animal and human, organism and machine,
public and private, nature and culture, men and women, primitive and civilised are all in question
ideologically (Haraway 2001: 156). So we must embrace the fact that technology and the machine are
apart of us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment (Haraway 1991: 180) while remaining aware
of such. This potentially bypasses issues of problematic representation of the artist. As the artist is not
inherently real when projected in virtual liminal space, this gives opportunities for artists that may be

15

marginalized from political and social constraints in their own society to elude these infrastructures and
connect and disseminate their music in virtual communities online.
In terms of studying virtual technology through ethnomusicological methods, it appears the
most integral thing to be understood is perspective. Research before the field needs to take place
alongside the field analysing a web of global politics, international relations, and the state of global
capitalism relevant to the project. This goes hand-in-hand with the specific, inner-workings of the
community and prevalent cultural modes. But this does not call for an entirely new branch of
methodological processes for the ethnomusicologist. Thomas Turino in Structure, Context, and Strategy in
Musical Ethnography explains that culture is shaped by multiple layers of determination (Turino 1990:
407) and this is relevant in determining the role of media technology as a global force. We need to
continue our study of understanding the multiple levels of culture and infrastructure that affect the
formation of communities - from global powers, to community semantics. In 1959 Fidelis Smith called
for a cultural musicology which conducts research and creative thinking in philosophy and the
esthetics of world culture it is a question of trying to approach reality as it is: one gigantic and
patterned entity, even though one does so from one's own limited viewpoint one faces reality in a
creative way, as interpreter of the musical patterns of world culture. (Smith 1959: 161-168). We have
to remain aware of the state of global politics alongside the inner-workings of the community that we
choose to study and how this affects cultural thought and production. Our study needs to concern the
liminal space of different communities operating in amongst a web of global politics. Through this, we
can reveal the changing face of musical meaning in changing cultural modes that is going to become
increasingly important for ethnomusicologists. In this essay I have tried to demonstrate how we may
apply new forms of understanding towards cultural processes when dealing with the virtual genre of
vaporwave. Although not a wholly comprehensive virtual ethnomusicological work, I have attempted
to illuminate that the task of understanding culture existing in virtual spaces can no longer separate an
understanding of culture and technology in the case of virtual fieldwork, as they are fully intertwined
and inform each other. Rather, we need to embrace the liminal aspects of our study and revel in new
forms of multi-media musical engagement, and not shy away from challenging our understandings of
culture.

16

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