Sony will soon release an AR and VR adaptation of the late, great David Bowie’s commemorative museum retrospective ‘David Bowie is’.
Featured first at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, ‘David Bowie is’ attracted over 2 million visitors across the 12 cities where it was presented. The exhibit detailed the late David Bowie’s creative processes, and followed “his shifting style and sustained reinvention across five decades,” a statement from Sony says. After five years in operation, the physical exhibition made its last stop at the Brooklyn Museum, which closed the exhibit doors yesterday.
Developed by Planeta, a product studio based in New York City, the upcoming AR/VR version of David Bowie Is is slated to arrive on smartphones and “all major VR/AR platforms,” a Sony press release reads, with release expected sometime in fall 2018. The experience will be offered in nine different languages, Sony says, and The David Bowie Archive will be donating a share of the profits from this project to the V&A and the Brooklyn Museum.
Sony is staying mum on exactly which platforms it’s coming to.
The digital experience is said to deliver an “astonishing, but deftly connected sequence of audio visual spaces through which the work and artifacts of Bowie’s life can be experienced.” The VR/AR apps are said to include 3D scans of his many period-defining costumes and objects, captured in what the creators say was done with “meticulous detail.”
The experience, the company says, may even let you virtually step into one of Bowie’s outfits too. This, we imagine, could likely be a feature of the AR-facing mobile app, although it’s pure speculation at this point.
If you’re interested in receiving updates on the project, head over to DavidBowieIsReal.com. In the meantime, take a look at the Associated Press’s report on the physical exhibit to see some of the items that may make their way into the AR/VR app.