Stieble Eltron is a character that was created as a response to my experience with the music I was seeing and hearing around me. After experiencing both sides of the nepotism that accompanies many art and music circles, I wanted to create a heroic pseudonym that could exist without these boundaries or aids. Someone with their own backstory, lore, friends, foes, robots, timeline, love interests, and of course, a unique performance style. Whilst not condemning the networking that is inherent (and often needed) within these communities, Stieble Eltron was a way of testing a different angle.

Stieble Eltron hails from the year 2099 and is rumoured to have laboratory nights and Twitter conferences with Elon Musk and clones of Stephen Hawking. Stieble plays live shows with his three robot dancers Nopia5000, Bootbot the First, and Bootbot’s twin Sliedle Bonetrom. Live, Stieble’s show consists of gestural effects, primal synth solos, filthy 80s dance beats, projected visuals, live dancers, and synced-up lighting. In addition, a story is recounted on stage and acted out by the robots that reveals how Stieble’s greatest enemy, Steven Oildrum, came into existence.

Stieble also features experienced musicians to solo live, each rebranded with a custom name such as Stiebeans Eltriangle, Flugel Oiltrump, and Seagull Elprawn. Many of the spinoff characters have their own social media pages (run by me) and interact with each other’s posts. Steven Oildrum—or rather; me dressed as Steven—plays gigs too, and they are worse than Stieble’s so that Stieble can tease Steven at his own shows. The vast array of characters and media pages in this world are meant to be discovered by fans, not advertised. I believe this allows pieces of the greater narrative to unfold for those who search.

This project also satirizes on dance music (even though I enjoy it) and the aesthetic does fetishize excessive “gear,” and what it means to be a producer performing live. It comments on and uses current day technology in a way that is comedic but hopefully brings light to the way technology is reforming our thoughts, bodies, and daily routines. I believe that even a short amount of exposure daily to a news feed or equivalent media, constricts our mental horizon a huge amount. If we fill our minds with mindlessness, our thoughts and actions are sure to reflect what we have consumed.