AF UPRAKTISKE GRUNDE: Om samlinger blandt danske musikfans

Resumé

The article is a study of music fans and

primarily concerns the objects collected by

these people. Two main arguments run through

the analysis. First of all, the collections are

considered as results of a human eagerness to

categorize and systematize, and, as such, one

can see this accountn as an exemplification

of Claude Lévi-Strauss’ thought in a modern

Western setting: Things are not known

because they are relevant – they become

relevant because they are known; as soon

as a possible acquisition is discovered by

a fan, comes the urge to obtain it. Such

conclusions, more-over, are much in line

with Baudrillard’s writings on collections,

in which system-atisation and striving for

completing a known series are the basic

motives for collecting. There are things,

however, which are difficult to explain by

reference to the urge for completeness, for

example, those things which have previously

been used, or merely touched, by a particular

singer. The second and prominent part of the

article’s argument explores, therefore, other

theo-retical possiblities for understanding the

music fans’ collections. Classical theories of

magic and theories of play and frames are

combined to show how fans seek to gain

allegorical control – not of themselves, as

is suggested by Baudrillard – but of a social

relation that has been bodily felt through

listening to music. The fans and collectors

define their use of symbols in ways that

resemble the classical anthropologies of

magical practice within a frame of play.

Furthemore, an analysis of autographs will

show that, while allegorical micro universes

and the rules and systems within them are

much valued by fans, many also seek to

obtain proof that the felt relation to a given

singer actually exists outside the frame of

play. The autograph can thereby be considered

a gift, and the cultural rules guiding

the interpretation of this gift are not confined

to a universe of play. The autographs are

interpreted according to well-established

cultural ideas of gifts as expressions of

emotions. One regards the autograph as a gift

and, especially, as a veritable sign that the fan

exists in the conscious world of the singer. It

is argued that, for the music fan, collecting

is not merely an attempt to gain control of

the self through striving for completeness,

but an attempt to gain control of a particular

social relation which is difficult to handle,

making it necessary to jump back and forth

between play and “reality” and between the

corresponding ways of using symbols within

these different contexts.