David Bowie in Bangkok, 1983 | Photo: Denis O’Regan
David Bowie’s official photographer has transformed his vast archive of images of the legendary singer into an immersive audio-visual experience.
Denis O’Regan has photographed David Bowie more than any other photographer, amassing an archive of more than 10,000 images of the late singer during his career.
Billed as an immersive spatial-sound documentary, Bowie: Unseen | Unheard brings together 800 of British photographer O’Regan’s images, pairing them with spatial soundscapes played through 60 L-Acoustics L-ISA speakers.
David Bowie in Milton Keynes, 1983 | Photo: Denis O’Regan
Bowie: Unseen | Unheard is on view in the Venice Immersive section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, Italy, through September 12. Bowie died in 2016, but the project was conceived and developed with the full support and cooperation of the late singer’s estate. The project offers O’Regan’s personal portrait of the singer.
David Bowie in Bangkok, 1983 | Photo: Denis O’Regan
Denis O’Regan at the Royal Albert Hall
The installation plays out across eight screens and 84 hidden speakers, combining 12 Bowie songs with O’Regan’s commentary and an archive of hundreds of photographs. Viewers hear snippets of Bowie’s music alongside commentary from the British photographer himself.
O’Regan’s 800 images, some of which have never been seen before, span more than two decades of Bowie’s career. Rather than simply presenting the photographs, Bowie: Unseen | Unheard uses sound to create a separate narrative around the images.
Each photograph is told with immersive sound, using professional audio leader L-Acoustics’ L-ISA spatial audio technology, allowing viewers to experience a multi-sensory journey where sight and sound bring Bowie’s world to life.
“David would have loved this, definitely,” O’Regan tells The Guardian. “And he would have loved it going into the Venice film festival. He was always a bit of a groundbreaker. David loved his technology. He loved making things happen and experimenting with new ideas, like his Bowie bonds or Bowie.net. Listen to the Aladdin Sane album from 1973 and he’s already writing lyrics like, ‘Pour me out another phone, I’ll ring and see if your friends are home’. The thing about David is that he wasn’t just about the music. He was about mime, visuals, theatre, film.”
The project is designed to make audiences feel as though they are experiencing the moments captured in O’Regan’s photographs rather than simply looking at them. The installation uses sound to recreate different parts of Bowie’s world, from the anticipation before he walked on stage and the scale of an arena to backstage conversations and the atmosphere of brief, unrepeatable moments.
More information about Bowie: Unseen | Unheard at Venice Immersive at Venice International Film Festival can be found here.
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