February 3, 2008

"They stopped what they were doing and stood... like frozen."

This is very cool. I have a low tolerance for performance art. I'm old enough to clearly remember when these things were called "happenings." I also remember be-ins and love-ins. So don't get cute, don't get in my face with your art. I think you are annoying... most of you. But this one charms me.

(Via The Anchoress.)

11 comments:

rhhardin said...

It needs an army of counterartists looking and pointing at the ceiling.

J said...

Or falling to their knees in front of those frozen screaming "NOOOOOO".

Charm depends a lot on circumstances. Like most performance art, this looks like something fom the "How to Make People Go Postal" manual. They're lucky the guy in the cart wasn't armed and didn't feel like running anybody over.

John Burgess said...

Imagine if all of the 'frozen' had bitten down on a blood capsule just before going static!

Such a small change with such a large effect...

Palladian said...

I don't like when people do weird things in public, charming or not.

Police and armed Reservists wandering around Grand Central tend not to like it either.

George M. Spencer said...

Of course, the experiment's intent (to study the genuine reaction of passersby) fails because of the presence of cameras, resulting from the observer effect, often misunderstood as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Freeman Hunt said...

That was neat. I would have liked to have been there to see it in person.

reader_iam said...

Koyaanisqatsi

blake said...

These guys amuse me.

They're the ones who went into Best Buy wearing the blue shirts and beige pants?

Peter Hoh said...

Love it.

Wish I had been there.

katiebakes said...

Blake - they are indeed. Google "Improv Everywhere" - they have some great stunts. The Best Buy is one of my favorites, and the McDonalds Bathroom Attendant is hysterical as well!

blake said...

I haven't seen that one, but it's been a while since I dug around there.

I think it's genuinely interesting (dunno about "art") because of how people react. I love that people clapped at the end of this one.