L’expérience de la musique en régime numérique : continuité ou disruption ?

Based on the author’s numerous previous works on the transition from analog to digital music, this paper discusses the notion of the “digital shift”: indeed, in comparison with the analog era of cultural production, digital technologies and their generalization seem to have broken down a number of economic, practical and symbolic barriers. In particular, they seem to encourage an increase in the number of artists by reducing the costs of entering the art market and maximizing the possibilities of access to fame through social networks. They appear to heighten the social well-being of audiences by improving access to a larger number and variety of pieces. They may erase the hierarchy of artistic works by favouring the aesthetics of hybridization and decontextualization. So how can this paradigm shift be integrated into the framework of art theory and art history? How can we think about the anthropological scope of the transformations induced by technical mutations?