Esben and the witch

Because of the revolution caused by the mobile world one of the bad side is the abundance of apps that, in fact, have no use. It is what happens, for example, with the tv-series apps; i don’t think a video, photos and news aggregator is enough to impel the people to download an app, expecially for the ones, like me, who have a smartphone with a very low storage capacity.

I’m not interested in downloading apps for just a month or two and then cancel them, if an app is not useful at least let it be entertaining!

This daft machine is a perfect example of an entertainig app which is not useful, it’s unofficial and it’s far more downloaded than the official Daft Punk’s app. The principle this app works on, involuntarily, is what Henry jenkins calls “negative capability”. Jenkins applies this theory mostly to the fanfiction, in few words the negative capabilities is what  cultural products ( brands) allow fans to work on.

In my opinion there’s a lot of negative capabilities in musical bands, but are very few the bands with fans so much engaged to induce these dynamics, daft punk maybe are one of them. If fans don’t feel this urgency it’s up to the brand and the gamification is the key. People have to play with the brand in order to feel more engaged and the game is the best way to install a good relationship. I’m not saying everyone has to make its own branded tetris, or puzzle bobble, the gamification process must proceed in accordance with the brand image. So what we need is symbolic universe to play with.

I think Esben and the witch have much of this potential, because of the symbolic universe their name and “image” inspires. Here’s how i think it should work an app for the band in occasion for the launch of the new record.

Using the microphone the app should analyze the frequencies of the space and spot a particular one, that  can pretend to be the “spectrum frequency”. We can decide the parameters for what, if the analysis gives the values included in a certain range, the result is meaningful and declare the area has “paranormal traces”. The results could be shared on social networks and on a page in order to create a world map of the paranormal activities.