David Bowie and the Art of Music Video

From the kooky Space Oddity to the disturbingly sublime Lazarus, this book charts the course of David Bowie’s collaborative process, across five decades of music videos. Revealing Bowie’s playful energy and visionary influence, the book shows how he consistently expanded the possibilities of music video as an art form. While Bowie traversed many mediums, he can also be described as a medium, and this book shows how his work as a visual artist was inextricably entwined with his music. Forming relationships with directors and artists who could play out their combined imaginings, together they achieved new forms through the use of performative play, chance composition, puppetry, gestural animation and avant-garde strategies. By examining Bowie’s collaborative process, his use of performative gesture, and his integration of avant-garde art with popular music and media, the book provides a history of music video in relation to the broader field of audiovisual media and popular music.