I was so excited to hear there would be an app showing us all the artefacts from the David Bowie Is exhibition and it was to be realised on what would have been his 72nd birthday. I was one of the first to download it and firstly let me say that £6.99 is the most I have ever paid for any app. But I thought it would be worth every penny.
So far this is what I think of the app. Many of my friends have phones that are not compatible with the app. This includes some iPhone and iPad as well as Android devices. If you do have a compatible phone – Hurray! Spend your £6.99 and then wait an eternity for it to load. Its ridiculously difficult to get it to load. You need a brightly lit surface and even when in a brightly lit surface it doesn’t always recognise that. And you need that brightly lit surface to be a flat one…but once it loads its initially impressive. I got excited thinking it would be all of the items I had seen in Brooklyn (which was the biggest version of the exhibition). Well so far it is categorised into various sections and there is narrating over the top. It’s not the same layout as the exhibition and I am genuinely disappointed. For those of us who went to see the Exhibition and spent hours there…I wanted to be absorbed into the app the same way I was with the exhibition. There doesn’t seem to be more than half a dozen items in each section. Its not enough!. I want to see the letter where Bowie changed his name. I want to see his sax. I want to see the words to Win in the soul section (not the cut-up lyrics section). I want the music to be relevant to the section I am viewing (sadly that didn’t always happen even in the exhibitions) and most of all – I want to re-live the exhibition in all its glory. This app promises you the world but sadly is lacking in fulfilling those promises. David loved technology and was always ahead of the game. The app is beautiful to look at but we need a bit more. I do hope they consider adding more. Is the Elephant Man poster in it? I haven’t looked through it all yet but so far…it’s a glimpse at what the Exhibition was. A ghost. A hollow shadow of what it was. I will continue to explore and I am grateful for any morsel or crumb of anything …but please give the fans what they want. An immersive experience into the life and music of David Bowie.
