Introduction: Navigating with the Blackstar: the mediality of David Bowie

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. On the left-hand side of Pegasus’ Bowie artwork, Mobstr’s block lettering ‘ – Darling, look, It’s a commission. – Don’t be silly my dear. That’s just some vandalism. – Oh right. Yes, of course’, stenciled in 2014, is a response to the ‘theft’ of the Banksy mural. This mural, on the side of a Poundland store, depicted a child sewing a bunting of Union Jacks (presumably Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics memorabilia). Hence the play with the words ‘commission’ and ‘vandalism’. Pegasus’ Bowie tribute was stenciled in the space occupied by this Banksy high-profile mural. See Hansen and Danny (2015, p. 898) for an account of the ‘emergence of a lively local intertextual visual dialogue’ in this particular public space over a period of 18 months following the removal of Banksy’s piece (February 2013–September 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Perrott

Lisa Perrott is Senior Lecturer at the University of Waikato. Her research traverses audiovisual media, music video, animation, cultural studies, audience and fan studies. Lisa is co-editor of the Bloomsbury book series: New Approaches to Sound, Music and Media. She is the author of ‘Bowie the Cultural Alchemist: Performing Gender, Synthesizing Gesture and Liberating identity’(2017), published in Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, and is currently completing her monograph David Bowie: Music Video, Transmedia and Collaborative Process (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).