Flashmobs

[martin ewen]

Flashmobs are an internet driven form of public gathering where people meet up at a certain location and do something eccentic for 10 mins then disperse.
They recieve instructions re instant messaging or e-mail

People have crowded into a macys and asked for a non existant product.
People have crossed and recrossed an intersection while spinning
People have gathered under two colored balloons, one lot chanting 'marco' and the other color chanting 'polo' for 10 mins.
Its a couple of months old and is bigger in Europe than Nth America but theres been a few start up in NY.

The instant-mob devotes itself to a pre-determined task, action or demonstration and then rapidly dissolves just as it had formed. Flashmobs can be social, artistic, political or just fun.

I think it has a lot of imaginitive potential. Spinning and 'marco polo seem a bit entry level as far as weird ideas go.

I'm thinking of serial mobs at different locations internationally simultainiously.
I've just bought flashmob1.com
(along with Idpayadollartoseethat.com as a poss spinoff)

Anyone else heard of this?

[Evan Young]

I read about it in the newspaper. It sounds like fun to me.

[Danny Hustle]

We had one here last week in Harvard Square. My girlfriend participated but I was unable to attend due to a prior engagement (my son wanted to go swimmin’ in the lake).

She had a ball and I’m looking forward to the next flash.

I think it is a great idea and I think most of us need more random acts of silly in our lives.

Best,

Dan-

[Talondark X]

I wonder if organizers can be charged with inciting a riot if the crowds turn violent? Or would they be able to find them in the first place?

[Jim]

I've been creating flash mobs who do what I tell them for half an hour and then pay me at the end for the past ten years.

I was reading another board that talked about flash mobs and most people seemed to think it was simply a fad that's time had passed already... Some 'mobs' in San Francisco are only drawing a dozen or so people. And once something starts getting media coverage it's only a matter of time before average people see 100 random people sitting in a crosswalk and say "Oh, it's one of those flash mobs." The surprise is gone.

It's like now when I finish my show and some teenage kid comes up and asks me to say some stupid phrase into a camera, I think, "Great, this is going to wind up on Jackass or something." Or when the IRS comes knocking at my door and tells me I'm being audited, I say, "OK, where's Ashton Kutcher, I'm getting Punk'd, right?"

I did like one person's suggestion, though: He said it would be fun to organize a 'counter mob' to the 'flash mob' and the flash mob would get all confused. Once you hear about an organized flash mob, get a few dozen people to show up with signs or megaphones (or portable sound systems) and heckle the original mob. Fun.

Andy Kaufman did something kind of flash mob-like. After one of his performances at Carnegie Hall, he had his entire audience board school buses and took them all out for milk and cookies.... several hundred people!

I always wondered what would happen if you asked an entire street show audience to stand up and move to another location. Or if you were at the finale of your show and you told the crowd to follow you into a mall or something. How many would go? I guess that's another thread.

Here are some flash Mob links:

http://www.flocksmart.com/

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/206/metro/Shock_tactics%2B.shtml

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030725/od_uk_nm/oukoe_life_mob_1

http://216.120.237.84/~tghostr/

http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html

http://flashmob.info/

[firegirl]

[quote]Originally posted by Jim:
<strong>I always wondered what would happen if you asked an entire street show audience to stand up and move to another location. Or if you were at the finale of your show and you told the crowd to follow you into a mall or something. How many would go? I guess that's another thread.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

jim -- we used to do that at rennissance faires all the time... there were times when we didn't feel like doing our whole show and, we'd wait until an audiance gathered at our stage - do the intro. to the show and then announce that we were taking the audiance on a "field trip" that day... more often than not we would take everyone to another performer's stage... usually hack n' slash or broon... as they were always down with silly gags like that. and, believe it or not, more often than not three things would happen: a.) we'd come back to our stage at the end of the field trip with more people than when we left (none of which would have been *stolen* out of another audiance... we always waited until the other performers had done hat pass) b.) they would have tipped the performer who we went to go visit, and, c.) they would tip us too... it was always VERY fun...

that trend lead to the whole "improv" variety show that is now standard at many faires at the end of the day... where all the acts gather on one stage and screw around and do each other's shows...

lots o' fun indeed!

[Cybele]

"I always wondered what would happen if you asked an entire street show audience to stand up and move to another location. Or if you were at the finale of your show and you told the crowd to follow you into a mall or something. How many would go?"

William Shatner, in his book Get A Life, tells of organising something like that at a Trek convention, as a practical joke on Nimoy. He got the auditorium full of people to follow him down to the parking lot, where Nimoy was supposed to pick him up. Nimoy tried to rescue him, thinking that Shatner was being chased by the mob.

Oh, oops, is my Inner Geek showing again?

-Cybele

[Peter Voice]

There is a guy in Melbourne called Marcus Davidson who has been creating flash mobs since about '87. He would, still does, hold impromtu midnight marches through wonderful parts of town, hold paper aeroplane competitions from skyscraper roofs and other stuff. On the last Friday of each month, we would await a call. People with drums, flags and all sorts of instruments or anything else interesting you cared to bring along would turn up. Mobile phones and web stuff was pretty rare but the word got around in the early days anyway. Some of his events have become seriously established as parts of (or attractions to) festivals, such as the "Port Melbourne Bomb" whoch is a competition for the most spectacular leap leap off a pier here. Marcus is a truly astounding maniac whose work has affected literally hundreds of musicians and performance and visual artists in Melb..

We too, got the story about "Flash Mobs" in the national papers this week. It sort of took away all the fun because people will now think they know why we are doing it and thus miss the point entirely. Bummer, eh.

[Stretch]

I can't remember what they call it, Guerilla night maybe, but in several cities a bunch of gays will get together once a month and crash a straight bar for the evening.

[Stretch]

Our clown alley celebrates National Clown week by taking the light rail shuttle to the mall, and then on to a resturant. One year we had over 20 clowns in full costume. Was great fun. Always thought it would be fun to celebrate April Fools day this way!

[ 08-06-2003: Message edited by: Stretch ]</p>

[martin ewen]

I agree that the exclusive nature of them has probably worn thin but i don't think that means they will wither.
People like being organised (ritual quantifies chaos Yadda yadda)
A superior flash mob could be quite subtle or complex and people could be quite happy with what it created.
As peter has pointed out , some people who were trusted for their creativity have been able to pull interesting group stuff off even before the internet.
The way they were pre-produced could also easily preclude anyone but the participants being involved.
I think its interesting how at one of the last ones in NY there were 9 policemen waiting for it to start (along with a prearranged media scrum) when asked why they were there they just said 'In case someone breaks the law.'
I could see it being scary for authority in that it would be relatively easy to anonomously create and manage, riotmobs or shopliftingmobs (imagine 200 people suddenly lifting something at Gap at the same time,[all over the world])
Anyway its just gestating for me at the moment and I'm looking at ways to produce something that looks beautiful as well as being interesting and involves humour and doesn't break any laws.
I'm aware that to organise anything you need to create a node for the info.
I'd like to incase my communications and identity in a bit of security too, (apart from this thread which could sort of blow that)
there a site that wipes traces from your e-mail does anyone remember it.
also interesting scenarios if anyone wants the excercise.

[Rex Boyd]

In Bath, England Noel Britten has done what he calls a "Comedy Walk" for many years. It's based on the idea of a "Ghost Walk" or "History Walk" like you will see in many cities. Noel takes his audience around several locations while stopping every once in while to do a routine or two. I don't really remember the audience being asked to do so much though.

Another English performer Jonathon Kay who is known on the Canadian Fringe circuit is well known for taking his audiences out in the streets to see what odd things he can encourage them to do. Very spontaneous and improvised stuff comes out.

Leo Bassi, one of the true legends of the street, is famous in Europe for crazy stunts of this kind. He has an amazing list of imaginative events listed on his website : http://www.leobassi.com/Funny/funny.html

I have also heard a few stories about various stand-up comedians taking their audience out and about. Ross Noble has done it a few times in England. And come to think of it I once saw a very memorable performance by the Doug Anthony All-Stars (from Australia) who took an entire audience at the Fringe Club in Edinburgh into the Ladies Room for the final half of their show one night.

Rex

[Rex Boyd]

I just remembered that there is some photographer going around the world organizing thousands of ordinary citizens to gather, take off all their clothes, and then lie in the streets. He then takes lots of arty photos of the naked masses. I'm not joking. I've seen photos of a recent event in Barcelona in the newspaper and I'm sure I read that he had done the same in several other cities.

Similar but on a much smaller scale, Anthony Livingspace gets one guy from the audience to strip down to his underwear with him and parade about before the grand finale of standing on the guys shoulders and juggling knives. Juggling knives is no big deal. The emotion involved in getting the volunteer to undress is the real entertainment.

Rex

[martin ewen]

rex
thanks for the Leo Bassi link, inspirational

[Jim]

[quote]Originally posted by Rex Boyd:
<strong>I just remembered that there is some photographer going around the world organizing thousands of ordinary citizens to gather, take off all their clothes, and then lie in the streets. He then takes lots of arty photos of the naked masses. I'm not joking. I've seen photos of a recent event in Barcelona in the newspaper and I'm sure I read that he had done the same in several other cities.</strong><hr></blockquote>


You're right Rex...


Now that's what I would call "Flash" Mob!

More here:
http://www.spencertunick.com/installations.html

[ 08-08-2003: Message edited by: Jim ]</p>