Hello!
My name is Eerik and i am working on my thesis project as a master’s student at Interaction Design (IxD) international MA program in the Estonian Academy of Arts.
I am looking for the project advisor to consult and discuss the process with. Discussions would be about interesting research findings, design iterations made, overall direction choices, final outcome possibilities and other inspiring topics about the subject.
I would be most excited to give my contribution and help the music scene.
Best Regards!
Eerik Kändler
eerik.kandler@meem.ee
Brief:
The aim of the project is to develop a future vision concept for recorded music industry.
My wider goal is to inspire and enhance the lives of independent artists and service providers. The service can be streaming platform, workshop, network or some other new solution in that direction.
Music industry is in the new big cycle of change on philosophical and value level. Many big questions and new challenges have risen.
E.g. is the field democratized, what is the future role of and what is expected from the artist, who are the new gatekeepers and how to connect with them etc.?
Project Background:
Introduction of the streaming and music sharing platforms (starting with Napster on 1999) pushed the music industry into the next big change cycle after the boom of CD-s (1982-1999). People involved have still not found their new roles and settled the ground under their feet. Everybody is kind of headless.
The power has shifted and many say that situation is democratized. On the booming era of physical music formats (vinyl, cassette, CD) the decision power what music will be heard by the masses laid on the hands of few big record labels. Nowadays it is possible to gain a lot of audience with the minimum cost (e.g. Soundcloud rappers) from your bedroom.
On the other hand it had lead to the situation where a lot of music released online is mostly on very poor quality level. So the new gatekeepers are curators behind online music channels (on Youtube e.g.), blogs (Pitchfork e.g.) and streaming platforms (Spotify e.g.) who are funneling the best gems (from their subjective point of view) to the audience.