Immersive Environments in Video Games as a New Stage for Popular Music Performance

Abstract

The popularization of virtual reality meeting points has become a form of socialization among teenagers and young adults, offering platforms for communication, exchange of opinions and personal experiences. Popular video games with open-world environments, such as Minecraft and Fortnite, provide interactive and immersive contexts that move beyond gaming, and which serve as “prosthetic extensions” to explore reality. Among these virtual interactions, music continues acting as a socializing and community creation agent, complementing live music events. The creation of virtual shows in virtual settings, which provide free mass access, affords the appearance of new stages for popular music and artists, achieving unprecedented mediatic impact.

In this chapter, I explore the interventions of Marshmello, Travis Scott and Ariana Grande in Fortnite, along some in-game events offered by the game’s developers. These events create “hyperreal environments” where fans can transmediatically approach their idols. The scenarios designed by Epic Games redefine traditional performative contexts referring to ritual processes, individual and group identity formation. Thus, in line with Frith’s perspective, according to which music ends up transcending the experience of sonic events through technology, I argue that digital stages define new practices for the everyday life of their participants, taking and turning current socializing dynamics into new possibilities.