The implication of social media platform in preserving Indonesian music as audio-visual archives in

the era of streamingWidiatmokoAdi Putranto

Universitas Gadjah Mada,IndonesiaAdhi Wirawan Dwi Pamungkas

Sonobudoyo Museum,Indonesia

Isdiana ZulidhaYogyakartaStateUniversity,Indonesia

Outline

• The Emerging Music Scene in Indonesia • Sounds From The Corner• Why Youtube• Conclusion

The Emerging Music Scene in Indonesia

It begins in the 2000’s.

The Bands

The Record Labels• Everyone wants to be the musicians, and no one

really has done management and documentation.

The Social Media

Underground/DIY documentation

• Magazine• Online-based Media• Radio• Zines

FFWD records on the band Mocca’shistoric sale

• Made 1,000 copies first• Sold 500 copies on the first day, • The rest 500 were sold in a week• In a matter of months, 5000 copies were sold, to

10,000 copies, and eventually to 100,000 copies

Sounds From The Corner

• Collaborative independent team consisting of producer, videographer, and recording/sound engineers

• Long-involvement in the music industry and “independent scene”

• Combining both major-label and indie bands• Promoting “potential” and “emerging” artists

Background

• There is simply not enough well-documented live shows for these bands.

• This is the first serious independent project that is aimed solely at documenting live music shows in Indonesia.

“I used to enjoy a lot of cool gigs in the early 2000’s and when the party was over, I hardly find proper documentation to re-watch the gigs I went to. So I started documenting them one by one.”

Relevance in the Streaming Era• Documented live shows are equally accessible

online, provide a different experience by seeing the artist performs, thus adding a certain level of connection with the fans.

• Increased values in the future

Curation• Bhaskar (2017) argues that the excess number

of everything today changes definition of creativity from creating to curating.

• The audience’s demands do not necessarily affect the SFTC team’s decision in choosing the artists.

Impacts

• The works of SFTC have raised the artists’ awareness about the value of archives and archiving.

• For the artist, proper archives are essential as a portfolio both for documentation and promotional kit for future marketing and sustainability.

Impacts• Inspiring people in other regional areas in

Indonesia to document live music shows in order to introduce and promote local musicians

• Giving free workshops on recording, documenting, and producing live music shows across the archipelago

Why Youtube

“…keeps various contents of music collection in one centralized space” (Burkart, 2008).

• popularity• accessibility• user-friendly• financial reason

• Youtube comment section allows the channel and the bands to get feedback and have direct interaction and immediate input from fans or the audience.

• The typical dynamic social media environment allows interactions between users to be very fluid and everyone could also browse for contents without having to sign up.

Why not others?“We used to be obsessed by Vimeo, but in terms of the number of the audience, Youtube are accessed by a significantly greater number of people. SFTC was created to provide references of music documentations, so reaching as many audience as possible is the main priority.”

Challenges• Sustainability• Archive storage• Funding• Imitators

Sustainability

• Indonesian government has blocked Vimeo, another popular video-based online service due to alleged inappropriate content. Recently they also blocked the social media Tumblr for the same reason.

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“Youtube is only getting bigger now. We are confident it would take a while until it loses its appeal.”

Storage“All of the archives of this project are in my personal hard drives. I realize the risk from this centralized storage but we don’t have sufficient funding to improve the storage system and network at the moment. Speaking in the long-term, I would like to have the archives to be uploaded in the Cloud so all the project members could have the access.”

Funding“Youtube monetization doesn’t significantly help us, instead we primarily use our own funding or product endorsement.”

• It can be argued that the project sustains because it is treated as a “project” not a “job.”

Imitators / similar projects?

Conclusion

• Live shows documentation will be increasingly important for future generation of musicians and fans, in addition to the development of popular culture.

• SFTC’s sustainability highly relies on their knowledge, passion and collective spirit.

• SFTC can benefit from coaching new talents to ensure the sustaibility and future of the project.

What’s next?

• Government intervention? Should the project be regulated?

• Partnership with communities from other countries?

• Physical space/museum-like building?

“If popular music culture is genuinely a culture of the people, then its preservation in the hands of the people seems appropriate.”

(Baker & Huber, 2013)

Thank you