David F Poole

Video installation created in tribute to David Bowie as part of the "Constructing The Self: David Bowie" exhibition at Vivid Projects, Birmingham, 3rd June 2016. By remixing appropriated audio-visual material from the 1969 Moon Landing, which was preceded by the release of Space Oddity by ten days, the piece references the “cut up lyrics” of Bowie’s early albums and the space imagery that recurs throughout his career. The visual representation of pioneers of human space flight parallels Bowie’s pioneering role in music, culture and beyond, whilst mimicking his playful sense of humour and iconoclastic spirit.

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With the video projected onto a ceiling suspended mannequin wearing a homemade astronaut costume, the piece references the heavily self-constructed nature of Bowie’s varied personae and their role as a screen, one which constantly revealed and paradoxically obscured his true self. Floating in the space, it becomes an almost devotional object or shrine to The Man Who Fell To Earth, one who has ascended back to the stars.

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The full video Space Ode-ity can be viewed below.