The David Bowie Is… exhibition opened at the V&A in London in March 2013 and marked a gear change in music exhibitions – dramatically raising the bar and breaking all manner of attendance records in the process. It has been on tour since its London run and its arrival in New York earlier this year saw a partnership with Spotify whereby the Broadway-Lafayette subway stop was renamed David Bowery and effectively turned into a gallery.
In total, over 2m people have visited it across its residencies in a dozen cities – but there’s a limit to how much an exhibition like this can physically travel. So it is now getting an augmented and virtual reality reboot later in the year. It has been created by New York studio Planeta in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment, the David Bowie Archive and the V&A.
“The digital experience, a first of its kind, will deliver an astonishing, but deftly connected sequence of audio-visual spaces through which the work and artefacts of Bowie’s life can be experienced,” said Sony in a statement. “3D scans will preserve and present his fabulous costumes and treasured objects in meticulous detail. The experience may even allow a spectator to virtually step into one of Bowie’s outfits and see themselves in it.”
There is even a dedicated hashtag for it already – #DBisVirtual – and the VR/AR version will be presented, in nine languages, like the touring exhibition. A share of the profits is being donated by the David Bowie Archive to the V&A and the Brooklyn Museum, but it is currently unclear what the business model around it is. Fans could pay for access via an app or major sponsors could help bankroll it. Spotify clearly has a marketing relationship here while both Gucci and Sennheiser were on board as sponsors when the exhibition debuted in London.
There already was an AR taster of the exhibition earlier this year when The New York Times, via its own app, allowed users to virtually nose around some of his costumes and pieces of artwork on display as part of the exhibition.
David Bowie Is… changed music exhibitions in the physical world? Can it repeat the same trick in the virtual world?
