Abstract
ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes how the rock band U2 uses screens as central components of the experiences of their concerts. Examining moments from throughout their career, and emphasizing their recent ‘Innocence and Experience’ and ‘Experience and Innocence’ tours, this article argues that U2’s constant employment of technology is less about spectacle, and more about the constitution of ‘mediated environments’ that reflect and embody how people live in and through all manner of media, including screens. Drawing on conceptions of U2 as a band interested in problem-solving and innovation, I position their on-going engagements with technology as a processual search for ways to live productively alongside technology. I use media studies frameworks to argue U2 expresses a politics of ambivalence through their use of screens, one that cannot resolve the tensions between the communicative power of technology and its potential to erode social relationships. However, this politics of ambivalence – as expressed through their tours – is productive, in that it produces for attendees ways of thinking and interacting with screen technologies.Keywords: screens, mediation, technology, ambivalence, U2
Published Version
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