The Role of Live Visuals in Audience Understanding of Electronic Music Performances

There is an identified lack of visual feedback in electronic music performances. Live visuals have been used to fill in this gap. However, there is a scarcity of studies that analyze the effectiveness of live visuals in conveying feedback. In this paper, we aim to study the contribution of live visuals to the understanding of electronic music performances, from the perspective of the audience. We present related work in the fields of audience studies in performing arts, electronic music and audiovisuals. For this purpose, we organized two live events, where 10 audiovisual performances took place. We used questionnaires to conduct an audience study in these events. Results point to a better audience understanding in two of the four design patterns we used as analytical framework. In our discussion, we suggest best practices for the design of audiovisual performance systems that can lead to improved audience understanding.