Kingston Uni Prof Transforms Himself Into David Bowie For A Year

 
Music

Kingston University professor Will Brooker has decided to spend the next year living as David Bowie. Whilst some might see this decision as the stalker-ish actions of a maniac, Film and Cultural Studies teacher Brooker maintains that his year spent as pop's great chameleon will allow him to offer new perspectives on the star.

"The idea is to inhabit Bowie's head space at points in his life and career to understand his work from an original angle, while retaining a critical and objective perspective at the same time – a kind of split persona perhaps," Professor Brooker explained in a statement that in no way sounds like a man toying with his own sanity.

According to the Kingston University website, "part of the process of the research involves only consuming the cultural content Bowie would have encountered during each period. For example, Professor Brooker is currently only listening to music, watching films and reading books produced before 1974 to get a deeper insight into Bowie's creative thought process."

We're unsure how far Brooker is going to go with this. Is he only going to smoke Woodbines and eat grim 70's food made from re-constituted 'meat'? To be fair, he only has to nip down Lidl to sort that one out.  

"He has also been dressing as Bowie, wearing the same make-up, experimenting with sleep deprivation, attempting to follow Bowie's dubious diet of milk and red peppers and has even started to take singing lessons." Continues Kingston Uni.

"However, some aspects of the icon's life are more difficult recreate. "His mansion in Beckenham has been demolished, for instance, and I'm unlikely to have a fling with Mick Jagger," Professor Brooker said. "However it is possible to engage with and get a feel for his experiences without immersing oneself to a dangerous extent."

Is it art? Is it relevant? If you were a student at Kingston Uni forking out £9K a year would you be happy that you're paying Brooker to get stuck into the world's longest Stars in their Eyes audition? It's not for us to say. Here he is chatting about the project…