Music, Multimedia and Spectacle: The one-man band and audience relationships in the digital age

Abstract

The one-man band is a highly performative musical practice which combines visual spectacle and musical production. As digital and electronic technologies play an increasingly important role in our lives and change the ways in which music is produced, performed and consumed, the traditional one-man band with a bass drum on his back and cymbals between his knees provides an interesting model through which to examine both our relationship with technology and the importance of embodiment and visual spectacle in developing and maintaining audience/performer relationships. Furthermore, for digital performance artists, the model of the traditional one-man band can provide interesting inspiration for new works.