Improv Everywhere | Frozen Grand Central
Process Research
I researched the process of getting large groups of people to do absurd actions. The three people or groups I researched are spencer tunick, improv everywhere, and arthur mole/john thomas.
spencer tunick, is an artist who photographs large groups of nude people. What fascinated me about his work is the sheer quantity of people who pose for his photographs. For instance his photo shoot in mexico city had 18,000 participants! Clearly this demonstrates how important is for people to feel part of a group and to do something exciting. the following is an excerpt from whitehot magazine’s interview with tunick.
The interviewer tells an anecdote of how he first met tunick, “We were neighbors on the lower east side. I remember passing a mysterious guy in an overcoat on Ludlow Street in 1994. He handed me a card as we passed. I read it and it said ‘Pose nude for spencer tunick’.”
The second group I researched was improv everywhere. they most famously did frozen grandcentral. where dozens of people walked into grand central station and simultaneously froze in place for 5 or 10 minutes. Like tunick, I.E. gets people to participate in a absurd/fun project that normally they would not do. I wonder what the number is for critical mass participation (tipping point)? I would hypothesize that if only 5 people showed up it might be called off but, if 200 showed up it would be really energized. Reading about the group it was started by an actor who impersonated ben folds one night at a bar, got free drinks, and many people convinced then it went from there.
The last group I researched was a duo, arthur mole & john thomas, who created photographs of symbols created by posing thousands of soldiers. obviously the big difference here is that there is a commander telling the soldiers that they must participate. what interests me is this notion of large group acting as one. In the same way the cells of my body act together as one unit, reminds me of the eames movie “powers of 10” where you look at things from different scales.
