Münsterplatz 19
Organizer:
Institute of Social Anthropology
“I Am the Noise”: Spectacular Capital, Online Celebrity and the Economy of Attention in Coupé-Décalé Music
Tracing the spectacular rise of coupé-décalé music in parallel with the internet in Côte d’Ivoire, we examine the figure of the boucantier [noisemaker] through the lens of a political economy of attention. Undocumented migrantsin France, the boucantiers used techniques of attention capture to transform themselves into celebrities, something like influencers before social networks existed. The boucantiers captured audience attention by giving away vast sums of money to performers on stage. Money floating through the air is a kind of noise – an interrupter that both destroys the content of the signal and draws attention to itself, creating a platform from which to make new value out of the spectacular. Coupé-décalé as a genre of music emerged aesthetically and pragmatically from the noise of interruption as it resonated from the dance floor to the internet, offering insight into the digital economy of attention now structuring our world.
Sasha Newell is an anthropologist specialized in material culture, magic, and mediation, and has written about both Côte d'Ivoire and the United States. He is the author of "The Modernity Bluff: Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Côte d'Ivoire" from University of Chicago Press. More recently he has focused on hoarding, clutter, and domestic accumulation in late capitalist society.
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