16/25/60 Blackstar
Locust Projects, Miami, 2025
Solo Exhibition
Locust Projects presents Blackstar 16/25/60, a monumental intermedia installation by artist Tomas Vu. Taking its name from David Bowie’s critically-acclaimed final album, Blackstar, the exhibition is inspired by the cultural and artistic legacy of David Bowie and his role as a cultural “mixer,” blending genres, ideas, and influences into new forms. Blackstar 16/25/60 is the third and final project in the artist’s Bowie-inspired trilogy that started in Berlin in 2019 with Space Oddity 69/19/45 exploring the struggle between man and machine. In New York, The Man Who Fell to Earth 76/22, warned of a technocentric dystopian future where humanity is left behind.
With rising sea levels looming overhead, the artist sees Miami as the perfect venue for the third and final piece of the trilogy. Blackstar 16/25/60 will take the opposite path from the previous by imaging a world overrun by nature pulling from the artist’s past works and personal archives as a harbinger of the future, but also forging a new space of possibility and potential, as both an outpost—a warning of the future to come—and a sanctuary for learning to survive in it. Through workshops and community activations, together we create a dialogue and seek to understand how we can find solace in a future where nature holds the power.
Central to the installation is a geodesic dome inspired by the work of futurist architect Buckminster Fuller, a recurrent motif in Vu’s practice, serving as a platform for projection mapping and a site for continuous visitor activation and engagement. The hexagonal panels of the dome display constantly shifting collages of still images and video from Vu’s extensive archive, algorithmically generated to create an evolving visual experience merging visions of past, present and future.
Inside the dome, visitors can engage with a vinyl sound deck of LPs from 1967-2016, chronicling the timeline between David Bowie’s first and last releases. This central unit functions as a time machine transporting visitors through sight and sound as they select tracks that shape the auditory landscape of the installation. Combined with sensors that respond to audience movement, the installation transforms into a living, responsive environment, emblematic of Bowie’s ethos of collaboration and constant reinvention.