'Our job is to envision something that doesn't yet exist': Es Devlin on her stage designs

Q33:54How Es Devlin creates concert spectacles on stage

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen to the Q with Tom Power podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Es Devlin is one of the most in demand stage designers in the world right now.

She was the mind behind Dr Dre's 2022 Super Bowl halftime show and the London Olympics closing ceremony. The English artist has also designed sets for Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Lorde, Adele and more. Most notably she designed the immersive art as part of U2's groundbreaking performances in The Sphere in Las Vegas

She joins Q's Tom Power to tell us about stage design, collaboration and her new book An Atlas of Es Devlin. An exhibition of the same name is currently on at Cooper Hewitt in New York.

Devlin's stage designs are intended to complement and enhance the experience of the music. "I think we're synesthetic, all of us," says Devlin. "I think we smell music. I think we hear colour ... I think if you walk while you are reading a poem, you would experience it differently. And I think you can experience music through the colour of the walls of the room and through the smells of what you're smelling while you're hearing it. I think we we are intelligent at merging all the different senses at once.

An integral part of Devlin's work is the deconstruction of systems, "I'm really interested in systems and why things are the way they are … Why are the curtains like that? Why is the world like that? And try and get under the bonnet," says Devlin. 

"I'm interested in why humans arrange themselves in hierarchies. In orders. When is it helpful? When could we outgrow? ... especially now when the systems that we are formed and shaped by seem to be creaking and cracking under the strain of evolutions of technology and humanity in general."

While designing the set for The Super Bowl halftime show, Devlin visited Compton to see the places that inspired the lyrics in Dr Dre's songs. Influential locations to the half-time performers like Tam's Burgers, Eve After Dark and the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial were all included on the Super Bowl set design. "There are places where Kendrick [Lamar] stood many years later, where [Dr] Dre had studied and both had formative experiences on those spots on the same spot on the planet," says Devlin. 

Devlin sees technological change as the biggest driver in how she creates her designs. "If we wanted to show the artist how their show looked we would take photographs on an SLR" says Devlin about the days before the camera phone.

Once the iPhone was introduced, Devlin was able to show her clients multiple different angles of their performance and receive feedback. "I learned quite quickly in my practice to not block other people's ideas," says Devlin. "Other people's ideas are more interesting than my own." 

Devlin collaborated with multiple other artists for U2's Las Vegas, Nevada residency show held at the Sphere. "You will come out with a new thing that you would never have thought of [on] your own," she says.

"You do notice the Sphere, certainly at the beginning people were so keen to film every moment that it was quite hard for them to dance," says Devlin.

But, Devlin always makes a point to dance at the shows she has designed. "I do love it [music] even in technical rehearsals."

The full interview with Es Devlin is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Es Devlin produced by Ben Edwards