Spectators of the 2022 Super Bowl might not have been expecting a lesson in urbanism during the halftime show, but that is what they got, thanks to the visions of British designer Es Devlin and producer/rapper Dr. Dre. Taking cues from Ray and Charles Eames’s 1977 film Powers of Ten, the show began with footage zooming through the universe to earth, to California, to the streets of Compton—Dr. Dre’s birthplace—before zooming back out to show the recognizable Los Angeles street grid projected into the palm of Dre’s hand. Dre, seemingly orchestrating a control board for the entire stadium, then turned up the lights and launched into a whirlwind musical and architectural tour of Compton and Long Beach.
Atop a backdrop of Google Earth satellite imagery of a night view of the Compton street grid laid over the field, the set for the halftime show featured local landmarks and cultural touchstones lined up along Compton’s Rosecrans Avenue (with some artistic license taken to bring elements of Compton and Long Beach together). “We cast each of the buildings as characters in the narrative,” Devlin, the show’s creative director, told RECORD in an email. “The details of the buildings are unified by their tone: bone-colored shades of stone pale grey, like neon-lit museum pieces, to be remembered as a series of forms and frames for the human story within them.” Although Devlin has a portfolio filled with past performance designs—from stage sets for Adele, Beyoncé, and U2 to Olympic opening ceremonies—she says Dre was more interested in her studio’s art installation works, such as Forest of Us at Superblue Miami and the 2020 Dubai Expo’s UK Pavilion.
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