Bianca Ludewig is a cultural anthropologist. She studied philosophy and ethnography in Germany, and finished her studies with a PhD in Austria on artistic practices and working conditions at transmedia festivals. She was a university assistant at the University of Vienna where her book "Utopia and Apocalypse in Pop Music. Gabber and Breakcore in Berlin" was published in 2019. She has also been active as a cultural worker and music journalist, producing texts and radio broadcasts for many years. 

In her research, Bianca Ludewig approaches different urban scenes that come together through music as audio social communities. Audio social communities are in most cases affective communities. This is true for most of the scenes linked to electronic music, club culture or experimental sound practices. Ludewig will present some of her findings that show how affect is linked to contemporary forms of communality, and what role sound and the sonic experience have within certain genres, and events. The aim of such affective communities in music is, for example, to combat fear as a postmodern phenomenon, through rhythm, resonance, speed, vibrations, volume, or atmospheres