Alexis Kirke and Martyn Ware discovered compelling patterns through computer analysis of David Bowie’s lyrics, song keys, album sales, and music features, presenting musical “sonifications” – the audio display of non-sound data.

Using sonification of Bowie’s career data to map musical features such as tempo, pitch, and loudness and turning them into new musical compositions, Alexis and Martyn hoped to make the progressions of Bowie’s artistic mood and commercial impact more understandable. 

The outcome, Bowie’s Mood Music, nestles itself somewhere between music and statistical art, these Bowie career-sonifications were an entertaining and informative part of ‘David Bowie is making a scene’, a Friday Late at the Victoria and Albert Museum, celebrating their critically acclaimed and record-breaking exhibition David Bowie Is.