LONDON – White Light supplied production solutions for the newest exhibition, ‘David Bowie Is,’ at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. David Bowie Is combines lighting, video, and physical elements with the dramatic and distinctive sounds of Bowie’s music to create a larger-than-life sensory experience. For the exhibition, White Light provided lighting fixtures, lighting control and production services, including project management and console programming.
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LONDON – White Light supplied production solutions for the newest exhibition, ‘David Bowie Is,’ at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The retrospective, which opened in March, is the fastest selling exhibition in the museum’s history, bringing in crowds as diverse as the experience itself.
David Bowie Is combines lighting, video, and physical elements with the dramatic and distinctive sounds of Bowie’s music to create a larger-than-life sensory experience. For the exhibition, White Light provided lighting fixtures, lighting control and production services, including project management and console programming. White Light worked with electrical contractor Reed Engineering to achieve Adam Grater’s immersive lighting design.
As visitors journey through Bowie’s career from David Jones to Ziggy Stardust and beyond, they are thrust from scene to scene by a fast-paced barrage of content. Large video screens display a variety of film footage and photography from the David Bowie archives while coordinated audio is played through both speakers and individual headsets. Artwork, original costumes, and artifacts – more than 300 in total – complete the experience.
The exhibition features LED lighting fixtures and strobe effects provided by White Light, including Pulsar Chroma Strip 2 units, Chroma-Q ColorForce 12 battens, and RGBW Chauvet COLORado Tour Pars. White Light’s Jonathon Haynes programmed the exhibition using an ETC Ion control console.
“The challenge with a project like this is not individual technical elements, but combining these to complete the visitor experience,” says Simon Needle, projects director for White Light. “Advanced planning and communication were essential to delivering a cohesive exhibition,” he said. “We were very happy to work with the V & A Museum, Reed Engineering and Adam Grater [of DHA Design] to help make David Bowie Is a success.”
