Spooker Trouper: ABBA Voyage, Virtual Humans and the Rise of the Digital Apparition

TY - JOUR

T1 - Spooker Trouper

T2 - ABBA Voyage, Virtual Humans and the Rise of the Digital Apparition

AU - Ng, Jenna Pei-Suin

AU - Bax, Nick

N1 - © Edinburgh University Press 2023. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the University’s Research Publications and Open Access policy.

PY - 2023/7/1

Y1 - 2023/7/1

N2 - This article analyses the ‘live’ virtual human in ABBA Voyage, the long-awaited concert reunion of the Swedish pop group ABBA, via Vilém Flusser’s concept of the digital apparition. It first argues for these virtual performers (dubbed ‘ABBA-tars’) to be understood as externalized computational codes which shift the grounds of ownership over and consent to the use of one’s likeness. They are also key to disproportionate and as yet unaccountable power held by technology companies. Secondly, ABBA Voyage’s presentation of ABBA as their past selves places time in a capitalism of immateriality profiting from the protean temporality of bodies. This temporal discombobulation thwarts finitude and confounds time in meanings of life, death and growth. The article thus addresses urgent confrontations between actual and virtual humans placed in the same physical environment, and paves the way for thinking about how we are going to deal and live with their virtuality.

AB - This article analyses the ‘live’ virtual human in ABBA Voyage, the long-awaited concert reunion of the Swedish pop group ABBA, via Vilém Flusser’s concept of the digital apparition. It first argues for these virtual performers (dubbed ‘ABBA-tars’) to be understood as externalized computational codes which shift the grounds of ownership over and consent to the use of one’s likeness. They are also key to disproportionate and as yet unaccountable power held by technology companies. Secondly, ABBA Voyage’s presentation of ABBA as their past selves places time in a capitalism of immateriality profiting from the protean temporality of bodies. This temporal discombobulation thwarts finitude and confounds time in meanings of life, death and growth. The article thus addresses urgent confrontations between actual and virtual humans placed in the same physical environment, and paves the way for thinking about how we are going to deal and live with their virtuality.

KW - virtual humans

KW - ABBA Voyage

KW - virtual performance

KW - mixed reality

U2 - 10.3366/para.2023.0427

DO - 10.3366/para.2023.0427

M3 - Article

SN - 0264-8334

VL - 46

SP - 160

EP - 175

JO - Paragraph

JF - Paragraph

IS - 2

ER -