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 The musical world lost an icon on January 10. David Robert Jones, a.k.a.
David Bowie, passed away from liver cancer, two days after his 69th
birthday coincided with the release of his 25th studio album.
Needless to say, artists from all over will mourn his
passing, as so
many already have. Yet David Bowie also helped shape our technologies in
both overt and subtle ways.
 Let's begin with his early career. After almost 10 years of
seeking fame as the lead singer of fledgling London blues and rock bands in the
1960s, Bowie began to promote himself as a solo artist. He found some initial
success, and in 1969 published Space Oddity, a five-minute-long track that he
wrote after watching Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi film, 2001: a Space Odyssey.
The film wasn't an immediate success, but nonetheless influenced many from the
first space generation, among them Bowie.
Of course you've heard the song before, but here is the
obligatory link to the original
music video on YouTube. Thus began the narrative of Major Tom, an
allegorical (and semi-autobiographical) astronaut coping with being human in a
completely foreign environment. Originally the album's producer didn't want
Bowie to record the track, as he believed Bowie was trying to cash-in on the
hype around Apollo 11. Even if true, Bowie created a song that will forever be associated
with space. It was used by the BBC as background music when BBC broadcast
the Apollo 11 moon landing. Later it
would be the first song performed in space, when Canadian astronaut Chris
Hadfield strummed the tune aboard the ISS. Space exploration continued
to be influential to Bowie. In 1971 he released Life on Mars. He played
an alien in The Man Who
Fell to Earth. As Ziggy Stardust, he
released Starman.
His son Duncan is a
science fiction director. The list goes on.
 Yet Bowie earned his stripes as a true technologist with his
love of computers and the internet. He encouraged fans to cut fan videos for
his 1994 single Jump by including software in the package. In 1997 he cybercast
one of his concerts, even if most internet speeds meant most people
couldn't watch. In 1998, Bowie was the first artist to use the web to
distribute his work when he
offered the single Telling Lies for download from his official website,
accompanied by an online chat session. Two years later, Bowie would start
his own internet service provider, BowieNet. For $20 a month, U.S. and U.K.
residents would get online access, an @DavidBowie.com mailing address, a homepage
that they could build and customize, as well as exclusive media and chats with
Bowie and other artists. In a 2000 interview with FACT Magazine, Bowie
described his vision for an internet where the artist is "demystified" to the
audience by platforms on the internet-akin to modern social media. BowieNet
lived until 2012 and most of its content was lost by its shutter.
As an entertainer, Bowie was extravagant and garish. He
challenged preconceptions and wasn't afraid to take risks. It turns out these
attributes also help entrepreneurs in the tech industry.
God speed, Major Tom.
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Re: David Bowie: Technophile
