Audiovisual Devices and the Construction of a "Nostalgic Community": The Reproduction of Nostalgic Space in " Sound Lives On: Taiwan Season"

Abstract

Nostalgia is an ancient sentiment of humanity and also a modern issue. In modern society, nostalgia has expanded into a universal social and cultural landscape. Modern nostalgia is also fully "formalized," relying on various audio-visual media (objects) to concretize and visualize stories and memories of the past. The nostalgic practice of narrative and emotional reproduction based on media logic offers a rich array of cases of media nostalgia experiences and theoretical imagination^[] "Sound Lives On: Taiwan Season" is a music variety show jointly produced by Hunan Satellite TV and Mango TV, which comprehensively arranges the "Chinese Music Chronology" with a focus on Taiwanese characteristics by following the thread of different eras. As a music tribute program with a nostalgic theme, it unfolds nostalgic narratives through the logic of text production in music variety shows. By re-interpreting classic Taiwanese pop songs, it evokes emotional memories of the national and ethnic identity among compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, providing us with a narrative text type of musical nostalgia and integrating the emotional memories of all participants into the text space. The sensory memories and aesthetic experiences of nostalgia are transformed into "significant forms" through the textual practice of audio-visual media. The construction and imagination of the past are transformed into another "reality" in the production and circulation of audio-visual texts. Nostalgia is a process of music text practice and also a process of producing a material, emotional, and relational space. This requires us to explore the content and characteristics of nostalgia from a new theoretical perspective. The research perspective of "apparatus" theory inspires us to combine text practice with visual devices, paying attention to the "materiality" of nostalgia. By combining the textual analysis of music works with the interpretation of spatial relationships, placing the auditory text of music within the spatial scenes and material (technical) practices of audio-visual devices, we discuss the formation of a "music nostalgia community" along the path of nostalgic space and community construction.