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David Bowie would have been fascinated by AI but also seen its “pitfalls”, according to a childhood friend.
The artist George Underwood – who famously punched the rockstar in a fight over a girl and left his pupil permanently dilated – first met the then-David Jones at Bromley Scouts before they went on to study art together at Bromley Technical High School and learn how to “think out of the box”.
Despite their teenage bust-up, for which Bowie later thanked Underwood as it contributed to the alien-like appearance which aided his pop career, the pair went on to become lifelong friends.
Speaking exclusively to The Independent ahead of a charity exhibition inspired by the singer, Underwood said his friend was “full of magic”.
“One thing about David, you could never predict what he was going to do next,” the 77-year-old said. “David was quite a vulnerable person. He was sensitive and had a lot of things going on. He wanted to get away from the mundaneness of the suburbia where we lived.”
When asked about how Bowie would have viewed recent developments in artificial intelligence and their impact on the art world, Underwood said he would have been “fascinated”.
Bowie, who passed away at the age of 69 in 2016, was a well-known advocate of technological advancements and was one of the first major artists to sell an album online before it physically hit the stores back with Hours in 1999.
Underwood said: “He would have definitely been fascinated by it. I mean, I’m fascinated by it. One guy on social media has made some of my paintings move. They blinked and smiled, and it was just ‘wow’.
“But that’s just the beginning, isn’t it? God knows what it will turn into in the future.”
This eye on the future is something that Bowie always possessed, telling Jeremy Paxman in 1999 that “we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the “good and bad” that the internet will do to the world.
Underwood added: “I think David would have seen the pitfalls [of AI] too. I think it’s dangerous. Obviously, it has advantages and disadvantages, as long as the disadvantages don’t outweigh the advantages, we’re okay.
“But I think some kind of policing has to go along, some to stop people being ripped off, particularly artists. [They] can easily have their work copied and duplicated without their knowledge, and that shouldn’t be allowed.”
During a 1979 interview, Bowie said that everything he did in his career has thematically been about isolation.
This is something he saw in Underwood’s art, which he described as depicting “sublime isolation” with figures “being both heroic and vulnerable at the same time”.
Underwood revealed that despite the singer’s isolation from their shared surroundings as young men, they still embraced life as much as they could even before they were touched by fame.
“We used to walk up and down Bromley High Street and chat up the girls, thinking that we were God’s gift,” he laughed.
“We were joined at the hip. We did have sort of almost the same thoughts. I’ll give you one instance. This was when we were quite young. I lifted up the phone to dial his number, and he was on the other end, he had just dialled me at the same time.”
With seemingly similar personalities and approaches to art, Underwood honoured his late friend this year with a new oil painting he created in aid of the charity War Child, which Bowie also supported.
We Love Dancing is part of a charity auction being held from 17 September to 1 October via Art on a Postcard.
“War Child is such a great charity,” he said. “When you look at the news and see how many children are in war zones, it’s horrible.”
The charity is currently being aided by several artists who were asked to create a piece for a charity auction inspired by the Rebel Rebel lyric: “We like dancing and we look divine.”
Explaining to the dancers in the work, Underwood said: “I clothed them in outfits which are were similar to David’s backing dancers called the Astronettes.
“In 1971, there was a concert in the Rainbow Theatre where they did a fantastic performance, and I thought I’d tip my hat to that period, which was when they had these sort of web outfits on.”
Underwood was a true Bowie collaborator and was responsible for the iconic artwork for his 1971 album Hunky Dory as well as 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
The paintings being auctioned off will also appear in the Sound & Vision exhibition, which features artists including Alice Wilson and Leo Costelloe. It is taking place at London’s 180 Studios from the 26-27 September.
“I think this is the start of possibly a yearly event,” Underwood said. “I think it could go from strength to strength. And my goodness, the world needs to help these children.”
