Anonymity practices in electronic music culture have long been the object of journalistic and academic discourse. Yet anonymity itself is ephemeral and ontologically precarious. How can scholars research anonymous entities without impairing their anonymity, and what can they learn from their precarity?

This study describes two projects of anonymity performance as forms of critical practice (Judith Butler/Michel Foucault) involving performative play with anonymity through the use of fake identities or collaborative persona imaginations. Adopting a reflexive and performative writing style, this performance ethnography calls for a radical performative turn and an ontological reflexivity in the cultural studies of music.

Autorentext

Stefanie Kiwi Menrath (Dr. phil.) is postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hildesheim and works in cultural and music education projects.

Klappentext

In electronic music culture, anonymity practices have long been established as a method of critique of pop star cult and identification regimes. How can scholars research an anti-representational music culture and what can they learn from it? Recently, electronic pop music has resorted to a performative play with identity involving fake or parafictive identities or collaborative persona imaginations. This study sketches two musico-artistic projects of anonymity performance as forms of immanent and particulate critical practice' in the sense of Judith Butler and Michel Foucault. Adopting performance in a reflexive and performative writing style, this performance ethnography' calls for a radical performative turn in the cultural studies of music.

Stefanie Kiwi Menrath teaches arts and cultural education, pop music studies, ethnography and qualitative research methods. Since she finished her bi-national PhD at Goldsmiths in London and the University of Oldenburg in Germany, she has worked in Berlin on the intersection of practice and research with a focus on transcultural and diversity education and arts and science collaborations. Between 2014 and 2017, she was a research fellow in cultural education at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin.