Time Again: narrative, history and identity in the work of David Bowie

"How do we make sense of the various characters, stories, cultural echoes and cross-references in the work of David Bowie?" Professor Will Brooker delivers his Keynote presentation at 'The Stardom and Celebrity of David Bowie' symposium held at ACMI in July 2015 during the 'David Bowie is' exhibition. How can we map the relationship between the identities he adopts within songs, albums and performances, and where does the real life of David Jones figure in this network? This talk begins to sketch a 'Bowie Matrix' of chronology and connections, drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the chronotope to track the recurring themes and call-backs in Bowie's lyrics from the 1960s to the 2010s.