When I was a teen, I had this perverse fantasy of wanting to break out into musical numbers in stultifying and stupid situations. Did life really have to be this routine? This predictable? This gol-dang sonambulistic?

Not if Improv Everywhere has anything to do with it. Originating in New York City, and now with growing chapters across the world, the group stages elaborate musical numbers in public places, such as this one, done in a mall food court. The group is also involved in the No Pants events, where people agree to ride the subways (of New York, DC, and other cities), on a given day and time, sans pants. The whole thing is coordinated online so that participants get on at different stops, giving the appearance of a spontaneous desire on the part of citizens to drop trou.

There appears to be a growing “movement” of people interested in doing these sorts of playful dada-esque street actions. Zombie walks are another, where groups of seemingly unconnected people show up in an urban area in full Zombie costume and makeup, shuffling along, mewing for brains. All of these types of events use emailing lists, sites and services like Facebook and Twitter, and the supreme tool for so-called “flash mobbing,” the mobile phone/text messaging to organize.

I for one can’t wait to see more of this sort of thing and can’t wait to be on a street corner or in a dreary mall food court when somebody busts out into a showy number, ’cause I’m going to join in. Hell, maybe I won’t even wait. “Springtime for Hitler” in Lafayette Park, anyone?

Here for more about Improv Everywhere.
Here for Improv Everywhere Global.
Here for more on Zombie crawls
(more…)

Photo: Mario Tama

Residents protesting the demolition of 4500 units of public housing were beaten by riot police in New Orleans, further revealing the devastatingly irrational and inhumane response to crises precipitated by Hurricane Katrina. Here are links to thougtful coverage:

BAGnewsNOTES
New York Times
Naomi Klein
Bloomberg & another Bloomberg

Ben Wilson, aka ‘Chewing Gum Man’, creates unique works of art on discarded gum you find on urban streets:

Each picture tells a story as recounted by a passer-by: this was the place where someone was knocked down or had their first kiss. The pictures are small signs of personal connection, a humanizing of an anonymous urban environment; he doesn’t want payment, it’s a gift of recognition in the city’s commercialized and often violent public space.

The artist has been arrested several times and was most recently asked to submit a DNA sample. The case merges compelling issues concerning artistic subversion of public space and government invasion of civilian privacy.

Here for an excellent article.

A shibboleth is a means of dividing people to identify those you fear or mean to harm. This “division” is an artificial crack in the floor of the main Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London.

Here for a great article about a controversial art piece.

What could possibly be wrong with pointing out overlooked or neglected public services and spaces by improving them? Isn’t that the summit of responsibility: to go out, act and change society actively? Does it influence our perception of such actions when people operate outside our legal system in carrying them out? Maybe it is too dissident to imagine a society which greatly benefits from highly illegal but well-executed actions.

Here are a few examples of projects carried out illegally in the public sphere but were nevertheless designed to make a difference:

- UnterGunther is a Swiss-French urban explorers team whose main activity is to restore invisible parts of public heritage in total clandestinity. They infiltrated the Pantheon in Paris and started, with the help of professional clockmaker Jean-Baptiste Viot, to restore the abandoned monumental 1850 Wagner clock. By secretly organizing workshops, the clock is now operational again after years of bureaucratic neglect.

In a recent interview the subversive potential of their acts is being discussed: “We are the counterpoint to an era where everything is slow and complicated. It’s very difficult to get anything done through official channels. If you want to do it, you have to be clandestine.”

- Dressed as city state employees, an artist collective in LA named Guerilla Public Service, decided to install a better series of signs to aid drivers to their destination and ease traffic blockage. Their actions effect positive change, they want “to prove the integrity of the arts, its place in culture and why civilization needs it.”

- Also: remember our post about guerilla gardening, the idea to garden in public urban spaces, armed with trowels, plants, and vision: here and here.

I find it fascinating to see how society fails in dealing with these sudden ruptures in its own bureaucratic, over-regulated and mal-functioning structure. The projects point towards the benefit of the subversive improvement of everyday life: the things we notice, don’t notice and what we take for granted.

Strictly No Photography is a sardonical celebration of one of many deviant possibilities new technologies are offering us. Displaying images mostly captured by cell phone camera’s, it is a photo-sharing site for pictures taken where you are not allowed to take them. From the inside of the Kremlin to royal palaces, from art galleries to war zones, they are images that range from the ordinary to the profound. Whatever their artistic quality might be, each of them serve as an expression of personal liberty and a disavowal of authority.

Here for the website.

See also Taryn Simon’s An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar

Works by Britain’s anonymous street-artist Banksy are up for auction at the venerable Bonhams on New Bond Street. Preview works here and place your bids here, or show up in person on November 11th.

Street art in general has gained enormous popularity, so much so that it is drawing in the art world elites. At what point does the force of the mainstream get altered for the better? Or at what point does the mainstream blunt even our most radical impulses? Comments anyone?

Posted in The Commons | No Comments »