A new immersive show, David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, is coming to London in April, showcasing some of the iconic musician’s most famous performances as well as rarely seen material.
The 360° experience is produced by Lightroom, which has previously collaborated with the likes of David Hockney, Tom Hanks and Anna Wintour. The show is written and designed by Mark Grimmer of 59, the creative director for the V&A’s David Bowie Is exhibition, as well as Tom Wexler.
Tickets are on sale now, with prices starting from £25 for adults and £15 for students and concessions. You can book tickets from April 22 to June 28 on Lightroom’s website, with more tickets being released for summer in due course.
The show contains a mixture of rarely seen and never-before-exhibited material selected from thousands of hours of film from the David Bowie Archive in New York, from ‘Space Oddity’ to ‘Heroes’ to ‘Blackstar‘.
Performance footage is combined with photography, drawings, lyrics, personal notes and audio recordings, with the film structured in thematic chapters in a looping presentation. Among the footage included is a somewhat awkward transatlantic TV interview with Russell Harty in 1975 and the reconstructed set of the ‘Diamond Dogs’ tour.
As with previous Lightroom exhibitions, the footage will be projected all around the cube-shaped room, placing visitors at the centre of his live performances. As for the music, each track has been newly reconfigured to work with Lightroom’s specialised spatial audio system to guide guests through Bowie’s illustrious career.
“It says something about our relationship with artistic heroes that we’re drawn to mystery, otherness, the alien … In Bowie’s case, this is our construct, not his,” said Grimmer.
“Throughout his career, Bowie repeatedly resisted being figured as anything but human. Rather than undermining his mystique, we designed a show to celebrate Bowie as a champion of human creativity – focusing on the message he expressed time and again: that art, in all its forms, is our best hope for understanding what it means to be alive.”
The announcement comes shortly after the 10-year anniversary of Bowie’s death. He died on January 10, 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of ‘Blackstar’. His widow Iman shared a new ‘Blackstar’ tattoo to mark the occasion, while The Libertines, The Horrors, Anna Calvi and The Molotovs were among a number of artists to perform Bowie covers for a new ‘Heroes Never Die’ tribute special.
It was also revealed last month that his childhood home is set to be restored and opened to the public, being used for creative and skills workshops for young people.
Meanwhile, two Bowie releases have been announced for this year’s Record Store Day. The first is a 12” neon pink EP of the classic ‘90s single ‘Hallo Spaceboy’, featuring remixes from Pet Shop Boys, Dave Ball and Ingo Vauk and a new mix from Tim Simenon, while the other is a half-speed record of excerpts from 1995’s ‘1.OUTSIDE’ LP.
There’s been renewed interest in one of Bowie’s most famous songs in recent weeks, too. ‘Heroes’ saw a huge streaming surge after being featured in the final episode of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
According to Luminate data, the track saw a boost of almost 500 per cent on streaming services.