Credit: Floria SigismondiThe recently announced digital version of the popular David Bowie Is museum exhibition will be released as an augmented reality (AR) app for mobile devices on January 8 — what would’ve been David Bowie‘s 72nd birthday.
Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman will narrate the app, which will be available for Apple and Android platforms.
The David Bowie Is exhibit featured more than 300 items from the late Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s archives, including stage costumes, instruments, handwritten set lists and lyrics, personal sketches, set designs, diary entries and much more. It opened at London’s V&A museum in March 2013 and was shown at 11 other venues around the world before closing last summer at New York City’s Brooklyn Museum of Art.
The app recreates the exhibition as a series of audio-visual areas where the viewer can experience aspects of and artifacts from various parts of Bowie’s life and career. The displays will feature high-res 3D scans of the memorabilia — including many items not featured in the original exhibit — enhanced by music and Oldman’s narration.
Oldman first met Bowie in the late 1980s, and the two London natives developed a friendship. They both appeared in the 1996 biopic Basquiat, and Gary was later featured in the 2013 video for David’s song “The Next Day.”
“This brings the amazing David Bowie Is exhibition to a wider audience,” says Oldman of the app. “It’s great that his fans get to experience it. It was a privilege to be involved.”
The David Bowie Is AR mobile app will be priced at $7.99. A virtual-reality (VR) version of the app will be released at a later date. Visit DavidBowieIsReal.com for more info.
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