BETWEEN THE (LIVE) STREAM: CONFIGURATIONS OF/FOR EMBODIMENT, TECHNICITY AND VICARIOUS SPACES

Abstract

Drawing on iterative, empirical work that investigates the conditions of an everyday hypermediated environment, this paper focuses on experiences of livestreaming from the Disney Parks in order to think about the embodied and the technological in relation to the limits of mobility within this configuration of space(s). Central to the issues I am taking up here is an idea of space which is doubly lived: first, as a physical, tangible space (in thinking about live streamers in the Disney Parks), and second, as a virtual space (such as Internet streaming sites such as YouTube, for example). As such, I am arguing that we can think about these spaces as a vicarious space in which vicarity is underpinned by a sense of mobility and an investment in the embodied. Vicarious space is implicitly configured through the technological in relation to video-sharing platforms and within social, cultural, political, and economic structures and systems which are – ultimately – everyday and mundane. These ideas come to be framed by an overwhelming sense of industry that is threaded through enmeshed within neo-liberal political structures. Yet industry is not often seen here, and instead, these practices and experiences relating to live streaming are understood as centrally relating to pleasure and affect. What I am asking here then is how is vicarity imagined in terms of embodied subjectivity and agency? And how should we understand this in terms of the Internet and opportunities for connectivity?