Woodkid in Paris

Sometime in the early 2010s, every tech company and media brand decided streaming concerts could be interactive. Fans would vote on the setlist, the stage colors, what songs the artist would play. It was participatory culture, or that’s what they called it. Someone somewhere would be the biggest fan, the most dedicated voter, and they’d get a song dedicated to them.

Woodkid, the French musician and filmmaker, did one of these events in Paris, in front of the Eiffel Tower. His work is always visual—his videos have this precise, dark, geometric quality. A concert shaped by thousands of internet votes seemed to miss everything interesting about him. But that was the bet: that distance could disappear, that watching meant participating, that your vote mattered.

I don’t know if the fans’ votes actually changed what happened during the show. I suspect they didn’t. But for a moment, the idea that they could, that we could shape what we watched through widgets and Twitter replies—that felt like something. It probably wasn’t. But it felt like something, and that was enough for the moment.