Studies, Experience + Innocence

Staged 2018, U2 World Arena Tour

“For U2’s subsequent arena tour, director Willie Williams, co-stage designer Ric Lipson, the band, and I revisited the LED block we’d made for Innocence + Experience. Bono had recently survived a near-fatal bike accident, and the new set of paintings I made referenced William Blake’s 19th-century engraving, The Soul Hovering over the Body Reluctantly Parting with Life. The show began with an augmented-reality sequence. Viewed through an AR app on phones, the LED block became a melting iceberg that gradually flooded the arena. The block lifted to reveal Bono as a giant avatar looming over the audience.”

—Es Devlin

A crowd of people facing a screen with a zoomed-in image of a person singing and lifting up a much smaller person in their right hand.

Production photograph, Experience + Innocence
Staged 2018, U2 World Arena Tour
Courtesy of Es Devlin

A large, indoor concert venue full of people with a long horizontal bar of glowing light floating above the crowd.

Production photograph, Experience + Innocence
Staged 2018, U2 World Arena Tour
Courtesy of Es Devlin

Dynamic, black-and-white drawing with abstract forms; two rectangles with some faint text are in the center with light blue lines separating them.

Es Devlin, Study, Experience + Innocence, Mixed media on paper.
Staged 2018, U2 World Arena Tour
Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution

Composite image of Es Devlin—a white woman with long dark hair—holding a laptop that faces the viewer while she looks to the right and gestures, with her hand, toward a blue digital rendition of a floating figure in the foreground.

Es Devlin, Rendered study, Experience + Innocence
Staged 2018, U2 World Arena Tour
Courtesy of Es Devlin

Studies, Experience + Innocence

An Atlas of Es Devlin

Your journey so far

All pages

An Infinite Archive

Studio

Iris

Archive Unboxed

Sculptures, Ideas to Forms

Studies, Abel’s Mask

Studies, After Hours Til Dawn

Studies, Bangerz

Studies, Come Home Again

Studies, Electric

Studies, Experience + Innocence

Studies, Flag: Burning

Studies, Forest of Us

Studies, Fundamental

Studies, Hello

Studies, Innocence + Experience

Studies, Legend of the Fall

Studies, Memory Palace

Studies, Mirror Maze

Studies, PoemPortraits

Studies, Sphere

Studies, Unknown Soldier

Studies, Witness

Study, Die Tote Stadt

Study, Don Giovanni

Study, Free Your Mind

Model, Atlas

Model, Betrayal

Model, Don Giovanni

Model, Fundamental

Model, Howie the Rookie

Model, La Caja Mágica / The Seed

Model, Legend of the Fall

Model, Macbeth

Model, Parsifal

Model, The Hunt

Model, The Lehman Trilogy

Sculpture, Songs for Sorrow

Model, Abel’s Mask

Model, Bangerz

Model, Carmen

Model, Chimerica

Model, Compton Super Bowl

Model, Flag: Burning

Model, Hello

Model, Innocence + Experience

Model, Les Troyens

Model, Progress

Model, London Olympics

Study, Dynamic Cube

Study, Perforated Screen

Model, Come Home Again

Model, Five Echoes

Model, Forest of Us

Model, Infinite Library

Model, Memory Palace

Model, Mirror Maze

Model, Please Feed the Lions

Model, Poem Pavilion

Model, Redraw the Edges of Your Self

Model, Room 2022

Model, Your Voices

Model, Zoetrope

Theater in a Box

Films

Book Unbound