Aesthetics of Duration and Transformative Justice

Livestreaming and Social Movements

Livestreaming has played an increasingly significant role in transformative justice movements since 2011, including the Occupy movement, 15M in Spain (Kavada and Treré 2020), the Quebec Student Strike (Thorburn 2014), the Native American led Anti-Dakota Access Pipeline (NO DAPL) movement in the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota (Martini 2018), and Black Lives Matter (Kumanyika 2017). Once livestreaming was more accessible through platforms such as Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope/Twitter, it became an important strategy in resistance activities, including inviting virtual witnesses and building networks of support without relying on major news networks and mainstream journalism for coverage. Livestreaming is part of what Sasha Costanza-Chock refers to as social movement media cultures, or the “set of tools, skills, social practices and norms that movement participants deploy to create, circulate, curate and amplify movement media across all available platforms” (Costanza-Chock 2012, 375). Traditional activist strategies and analogue media, including print-based formats such as posters and leaflets, merge with digital technological development and engagement. Scholars and activists who highlight the growing importance of livestreaming in social-justice movements tend to emphasize the impact of streaming on the development of activists (including those on-the-ground, streamers, and witnesses of streams) as subjects. Overall, there is a certain degree of ambivalence relating to the impact of streaming on activism, though generally such technologies are promoted for their capacity to engage with the unpredictability of social justice and invite new modes of participation for activists. Instead of focusing on the implications of livestreaming from an activist or citizen journalist perspective, I want to consider this media as aesthetic encounter, which is also a political and ethical encounter, just as it is a relational experience of transindividuation.

Simondon emphasizes how the living being is not self-contained, but is comprised of an interior milieu that is relative to an exterior milieu. Individuation, therefore, is relative, which includes relations to other physical and living beings. Referencing Spinoza and the human’s recognition of fragility, Simondon states:

Facing natural life, we feel that we are as perishable as the leaves of a tree; within us, the aging of the being that passes makes tangible the precariousness that responds to this upsurge, this emergence of life radiating in other beings; the ways are diverse in the paths of life, and we intersect with other beings of all ages that are themselves in all periods of life (Simondon 2020, 277).

Individuation comprises the psychological as well as the social, with society presenting “a network of states and of roles through which individual behavior must pass” (Simondon 2020, 327). The social informs the becoming of individuals, though in turn, individuals impact the social through relation and rapport. Simondon describes transindividuation as not simply individuating together, or inter-individuation, but connects to “how the living being lives at the limit of itself, on its limit” (Simondon 2020, 251). Transindividuation involves the existence of individuals together within the social milieu as we come to the limits of our individual being, containing “potentials and metastability, expectation and tension, the discovery of a structure and of a functional organization” (Simondon 2020, 339). Elizabeth Grosz highlights the significance of Simondon’s thinking for “feminist, anti-racist and radical political thought,” as he “opens up new ways of understanding identity transformation and creation—all central ingredients in a radical reconceptualization of thought” (Grosz 2012, 37). This is the framing of Simondon’s relational ethics and politics of becoming, which are also aesthetic. Jacques Rancière argues that aesthetics does not simply move people to political action, but aesthetics is political, as aesthetic acts are “configurations of experience that create new modes of sense perception and induce novel forms of political subjectivity” (Rancière 2014, 3). Livestreaming in social-justice movements, moreover, is not just political, but as moving image works that involve the sharing of the sensible, such streams are also aesthetic even though these streams are not created as art. In order to make the relationship between the political and the aesthetic more explicit, I complement Simondon’s techno-aesthetics with Rancière’s definition of aesthetics as “a mode of articulation between ways of doing and making, their corresponding forms of visibility, and possible ways of thinking about their relationships” (Rancière 2014, 4). The techno-aesthetics of livestreaming, therefore, are what makes the political possible, as politics “revolves around what is seen and what can be said about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak, around the properties of spaces and the possibilities of time” (Rancière 2014, 8).

Of all the recent movements to engage with livestreaming, Black Lives Matter has gained significant traction globally since it began in 2014 and has become the visible forefront of racial justice activism currently in the United States. Livestreaming and digital technologies have long played a significant role in the movement, even prior to the massive uptake of streaming during 2020. Charlton McIlwain (2020) describes how social media and web-based digital tools were integral to the rise and growth of Black Lives Matter, which began as a social media post, connecting the movement to a longer history of computation supporting racial justice movements and Black community building. Chenjerai Kumanyika (2017) discusses the significance of livestreaming in Black Lives Matter protests as a digital native, networked movement. Drawing from his experiences of streaming Black Lives Matter actions and viewing events and protests online, Kumanyika highlights the technical and aesthetic features of livestreaming social-justice activities, with emphasis on how these contrast from traditional media channels while being entwined with the changing needs and logistics of resistance movements today. Kumanyika’s account of streaming not only provides a conceptual understanding of its significance, but he centers the physical and technological aspects of broadcasting over the Internet. The embodied and phenomenological characteristics of streaming social-justice actions emphasize how the aesthetic qualities of streaming extend beyond the images produced, but include the relational gestures of creators, on-the-ground activists, virtual audiences, and others involved in the production, consumption, and impact of these broadcasts. These features enable an understanding of the supports needed to make livestreaming possible, thus contributing to livestreaming’s techno-aesthetics, as well as the impact that technology has on the body while mediating the stream online.

From Representation to Aesthetic Encounter

While today’s social-justice livestreams are not generally considered art works or performances by their creators, they are aesthetic encounters through the production and sharing of video within the realm of political activism off- and online. Engagement with technology in social movements creates the techno-geographic milieu within which activism occurs. According to Simondon (2016), this is also the relational context within which technical objects exist, informing and situating the technical being. For instance, Kumanyika discusses technological considerations of mobile livestreaming, such as carrying a portable USB charger to prolong battery life as well as ensuring that data plans and mobile phone coverage enable and support streaming. The technical needs of streaming directly impact activities on the ground, and also impact the person streaming. Kumanyika notes how “frequently walking long distances with marching protesters can be demanding. These challenges include the physical work of holding the phone—often with arms raised for several hours” (Kumanyika 2017, 176). Streamers may provide editorial commentary, verbally describing what is happening, which offers information about an event, but also counters the potential boredom of long, unedited takes. Some streamers respond directly to comments from the virtual audience in chat features, though the delay in timing between posting a text comment, having it become visible, and then reading by the streamer indicates how these interactions are not immediate. The act of streaming, therefore, can be considered a durational digital performance where the streamer is not an objective observer, but integrated into the techno-geographic milieu of protest both on-the-ground and virtually.

At the same time, as with the camgirls, technologies influence the style of the stream. While initially streams may have been shot in the horizontal or landscape format that has been the standard for moving image since the invention of the film camera, increasingly streams have been shot in the vertical or portrait style as the capacity to stream with smartphones has become more accessible and affordable, including the ability to transmit large quantities of data over cellular networks and major social media platforms, like Instagram, designed to accommodate this framing. Other stylistic qualities include long durational shots where not much happens, with the streamer staying still as action unfolds (again, evocative of more traditional film aesthetics) or moving with the smartphone as a handheld device, with these movements visible through the shaking of the frame. In order to minimize such movements, gimbles or camera stabilizers are now designed specifically for smartphones, making the camera a more fluid extension of the body. In addition, there is a slight delay between action as it unfolds on the ground and online, evident for example when streamers verbally respond to viewers’ typed comments as noted above. This delay or lag, like glitch and noise, is indicative of technical objects, drawing their mediating presence to the fore, which I define as the digital aesthetics of interruption (Putnam 2022).

These are just some of the stylistic qualities of activist livestreaming, but aesthetics is not just descriptors of experiencing a work of art or media. Rather, aesthetics involves the sharing of the sensible—a means of relating to others through sensation. Such experiences may involve formal qualities and style, though aesthetics is not limited simply to these features. Instead, aesthetics has a broader sense, as described by Bernard Stiegler, “where aisthēsis means sensory perception, and where the question of aesthetics is, therefore that of feeling and sensibility in general” (Stiegler 2014, 1). These sensations are not restricted to art per se, though art has tended to take priority in aesthetics, despite the fact that “art as a notion designating a specific form of experience has only existed in the West since the end of the eighteenth century” (Rancière 2019, lx). When extending the scope of aesthetics beyond art, it is possible to consider the capacity of livestreaming beyond content or journalistic narrative. Aesthetics, as the sharing of the sensible, provides an affective experience that exceeds quantification and enables us to inquire into the unknown. Aesthetics enables considerations of the capacity to relate to the sensibilities of others and the intention of social movements to build a political community through feeling together. These affective relations introduce perception through the sharing of sensation, which Simondon (2020) describes as informing how subjects relate to the world. For social-justice movements, this sharing of the sensible is political: it can build support through affective encounters of moving image. At the same time, the technologies of streaming are not merely neutral platforms; they are also ethical because they are entangled with and mediate how these aesthetic encounters manifest. These technologies bridge geographic distance, but also influence how time is experienced.

Cross Section of Time and Aesthetics of Duration

Something was different in 2020. There was increased attunement through virtual connections due to being apart physically. Even though social media and livestreaming were already recognized staples of communication, they became our vital tethers to each other. It is difficult to fully grasp the impact of this shift, even in 2023 (as I finish this book) as societies are transitioning to a different state of living (and dying) with the virus. adrienne maree brown describes the impact of the pandemic on our emotional states: “we are stuck in our houses or endangering ourselves to go out and work, terrified and angry at the loss of our plans and normalcy [. . .]. Grieving our unnecessary dead, many of whom are dying alone, unheld by us. We are full of justified rage. And we want to release that rage” (brown 2020, 24). brown considers how this emotional shift has become manifest in an increase in callouts and takedowns, or collective and public ways of bringing pressure onto organizations and individuals, concerning abuses of power, on the behalf of minoritized and oppressed individuals and groups. Jodi Dean (2010) describes how digital subjects are caught in endless loops of reflexivity, which are evident in the feeding frenzies brown identifies as affiliated with the detrimental callouts occurring within social-justice movements. brown has noted how through social media and digital networks “our access to the global scale of suffering has become immediate, through technology, but we have not developed the capacity to be with that increased awareness of suffering” (brown 2017, 149). Dean refers to this increased transmission of emotion as the circulation of affect, “as networks generate and amplify spectacular effects” (J. Dean 2010, 29). The Covid-19 pandemic exasperated what has already been present in these technological networks, as individuals are transformed through technological engagement with other individuals, both human and physical.

It is within this context that the Black Lives Matter protests and other anti-racist, social-justice actions took place in 2020, with livestreaming offering a quality of immediacy and contact during a time of geographic and physical separation. However, the capacities to relate, even affectively, have been invariably different, which include experiences of time. Commenting upon engagement with social media in social-justice work, brown states: “Real time is slower than social media time, where everything feels urgent. Real time often includes periods of silence, reflection, growth, space, self-forgiveness, processing with loved ones, rest, and responsibility” (brown 2017, 110). Such urgency became intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic, with social media being a significant means to connect with others. Periods of healing and rest increasingly metamorphasized into digital forms. In contrast, livestreaming introduces distinct ways of experiencing time over social media.

Social media typically involves rapid consumption of content, scanned through endless scrolling. Livestreams, however, involve a different presentation of time. During streams, especially the streams of events such as protests and other social-justice actions, there is always the possibility of something happening. Generally, these livestreams are presented in anticipation of something occurring, usually involving the camera operator streaming for multiple hours, which is longer than standard media productions. Kumanyika refers to streams as “slow media,” which for online witnesses cultivates a “shared sense of virtual presence with the streamer and with the protestors” (Kumanyika 2017, 180). Unlike certain live broadcasts where there is a synchronized unfolding of activity, like a choreographed performance such as Yara Travieso’s 2017 livestreamed dance film La Medea (see Putnam 2022), with streaming at activist events the camera just rolls. That is, the camera is on and the streamer presents for prolonged periods. Livestreaming, therefore, introduces a different scale of time in the realms of virtual and “real-world” time that brown discusses, pointing to another means of relating temporally through digital technologies.

Livestreaming, as a form of DIY internet broadcast, invites an aesthetic experience of duration for both the streamer and the viewer, where emphasis is not necessarily placed on the unfolding of action as it happens, but the potential that something might happen. Performance studies scholar Adrian Heathfield defines aesthetic duration, drawing from the philosophy of Henri Bergson, as a means of “dealing in the confusion of temporal distinctions [. . .] drawing the spectator into the thick braids of paradoxical times” (Hsieh and Heathfield 2015, 22). The aesthetics of duration are not just visual; they are experienced through the body of the creator and the viewer, enabling recognition of time’s structure while exceeding the framing of these structures. These aesthetic qualities of activist livestreams are evocative of slow cinema, which emerged during the twentieth century in contrast to the quick pace of mainstream filmmaking that compresses narrative and stimulates attention in two- to three-hour blocks.

Matthew Flanagan describes how slow cinema is characterized by “the employment of (often extremely) long takes, de-centered and understated modes of storytelling, and a pronounced emphasis on quietude and the everyday” (Flanagan 2008). Such qualities are evident in works such as Andy Warhol’s Sleep (1964) and Empire (1965). Sleep consists of looped footage of Warhol’s lover at the time, John Giorno, sleeping, while Empire is comprised of slow-motion footage of New York City’s iconic Empire State Building illuminated at night. These avant-garde works counter the stylistic norms of mainstream filmmaking, not just in their excessive running lengths (five hours and twenty minutes for Sleep and eight hours and five minutes for Empire), but also the presence of very minimal activity and lack of narrative arc. Activist livestreams also involve extremely long takes, unedited and shared synchronously while being shot, and do not have the narrative structure of mainstream media presentations. Unlike Warhol’s productions, the streamer may act as a narrator of events in order to provide clarity for virtual audiences and encourage engagement, sometimes responding directly to online viewers. These qualities also differ from traditional journalist media, where the streamer as reporter directly engages with the virtual audience, but there is a lack of editing between the streamer’s footage and cuts to a news station anchor, as is common with televised journalism. Slowness in this context, according to Rancière (2016), is not just aesthetic, but also political in its engagement with the materiality of time. Time is presented as time unfolds, where the phenomenology of the stream cultivates an aesthetic experience of time that is consistent with the pace of time for the streamer. Time is also politicized through social-justice action on the ground and online.

However, there are differences in the aesthetic experience of duration in livestreaming from gallery performances and slow cinema, particularly in the capacities of the viewer to engage with media through the affordances of technology. When witnessing a durational work in the context of a gallery or a cinema, the viewer is invited to engage with the work in a concentrated state of attention, as distractions are minimized through the framing of the work in the white cube or darkened theatre. Natalie Loveless describes how “durational performance that asks its audience to be there without giving the members of that audience anything to do or be distracted by (either in the form of expressed affect, implied narrative, or verbal language) is not a familiar literacy for many” (Loveless 2013, 131). Such types of witnessing “demand quiet attention and presence for an invested length of time during which there is little happening,” which involve an endurance for both the artist and audience (Loveless 2013, 132). In contrast, with activist livestreaming, the streamer may be engaged in this type of durational performance, though the experiences of virtual witnesses differ due to the capacities and affordances of social media interfaces that enable what Katherine Hayles describes as hyper attention, which is “characterized by switching focus rapidly among different tasks, preferring multiple information streams, seeking a high level of stimulation, and having a low tolerance for boredom” (Hayles 2007, 187). When viewing a video online, interface design invites switching between different tasks. A video may be open in a separate window or tab on a computer desktop or can be presented in the foreground of the desktop when in picture-in-picture mode. Such features are also present on mobile devices, with the ability to watch a stream as a minimized window at the foreground of the screen while continuing to scroll through a social media feed. Even if a video is open in a window, there is also not a guarantee that the viewer is actually watching the content in a focused manner. The nonlinear design of graphic user interfaces does not just invite switch tasking, but fosters it through technological affordances.

This type of engagement with internet broadcasting is not new to more recent social media platforms, but was also found with viewers of first-generation camgirls where the number of web-page hits did not clearly represent the degree of audience engagement (Senft 2008). With first-generation camgirls, broadcasting still images at fixed intervals minutes apart, these streams were not meant to be viewed with the deep attention of a film in a cinema or performance in a gallery. Instead, these refreshed, ongoing feeds enabled viewers to easily dip in and out, opening and observing (or not) while partaking in other activities. That is not to state that hyper attention means lack of engagement with streams, but that the durational qualities of experiencing streams differs from other media. In addition, while the viewer has the option to move between tabs, the streamer carries on with the broadcast, as the aesthetics of duration become manifest in the exhaustion and transformation of the streamer’s body, batteries, and data feeds. Thus, livestreaming functions as a distinctive form of the aesthetics of duration, both for the streamer and the viewer, enabling parallel yet interconnected experiences of time mediated through technical objects in a shared aesthetic encounter. This cross section of time can lead to physical exhaustion, as our bodies become attuned to technical objects that counter familiar actions, but can also open possibilities of how time is used to capture and alter attention. This latter point evokes what Yves Citton (2017) refers to as an ecology of attention, which focuses on how attention produces individuals rather than economizing attention as a scarce resource. While the capacity of livestreaming to enable social-justice movements to cultivate relations is no longer confined by the restrictions of geography, other significant, if overlooked, possibilities also emerge: the ability to engage with livestreaming to cultivate a new grassroots ecology of attention through the cross section of temporal scales.