The David Bowie Is exhibition ended earlier this year after a five-year tour that took place over 12 cities and drew in over two million people. But if you weren’t able to see the exhibition IRL, don’t fret – Bowie’s personal archives will be viewable in a new augmented reality mobile app.
The David Bowie Is app will give fans access to the archive of costumes, music videos, handwritten lyrics, and original artworks that were originally featured in the collection. Not only that, there will also be nearly 60 items that were never shown in the original exhibition. The app was first announced in June, but is now officially due to launch on iOS and Android on January 8 next year – which would have been Bowie’s 72nd birthday.
A press release explains that the app “mirrors the physical exhibition through a sequence of audio-visual spaces through which the works and artifacts of Bowie’s life can be explored”. These will be presented in 3D, 360-degree renderings with features that offer insights into each piece as well as music and narration in seven languages. A fully immersive virtual reality version of the collection will be due later in 2019.
The app is being developed by the David Bowie Archive and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., who hosted the exhibition in Tokyo last year. The New York-based Planeta studio designed and developed the augmented and virtual reality interpretations, basing them off the exhibition’s first installation at London’s V&A museum in 2013.
Watch a behind-the-scenes video of the exhibition below.