The Screen Is Alive: The Girl Idol and Live Performance in 21st Century Japan

• In Event: Old/New Media Cultures in Modern Asia

Abstract

Over the past ten years, the live girl idol boom has swept through the Japanese music scene. This revival of what is sometimes considered the oldest media platform has become a widespread phenomenon, represented by popular groups such as AKB48 or Momoiro Clover Z. While one may consider live performance to be the last stronghold of a space for true human connection in an increasingly mediated market of music engagement, the presence of screens in live houses, arenas, and outdoor performance spaces obfuscates a clear delineation of media forms. Furthermore, this juxtaposition raises a question of whether the conception of live spaces is only engendered when defined against what one might describe as mediated space. With these ideas in mind, this paper will explore the ways that “live idols” incorporate screens into their performances, both in the moment of performance and in marketed post-performance recordings. Is it possible that idol singers who base their identities on live performance have only gained the ability to invoke this claim by positioning themselves both within and against the screen? Through analyzing what the “liveness” of the theater space becomes in the face of endlessly proliferating screens, I examine what new technologies of intimacy are being created at this crossroads between old and new. Perhaps one can find that a hierarchy of visual modes is at work in these spaces; however, their integration and interplay creates a much more fruitful and complicated picture of the meaning of connection at contemporary live performances.

Author

• Kimberlee Sanders, Harvard University