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 webslinky: life after flash mobs
This week, getting together. Viewed with the appropriate level of detachment, internet memes and technological/cultural fads can seem… well, faddish. At least they do in terms of mainstream media coverage. But in the land before Second Life, Facebook and dogging, flash mobs were the social technology story of the day. For those who weren’t paying attention, the Short Life of Flash Mobs, a fascinating interview with the format’s inventor, describes a flash mob as “an event where a large group of people, having received instructions in advance, converge upon a place, do something odd there, and leave peaceably within minutes”.So, while the original flash mobster might have hung up his girdle, others continue to evolve the concept in interesting new ways. There’s been a recent movement amongst people who like to dress up as zombies, of people dressing up as zombies en masse: the flesh mob. They look like extremely good fun - check out these pictures from a recent zombie gathering in San Francisco. There were even a number of “zombie walks” in the UK earlier this year, and if you fancy taking part in the next one, not to mention get some grotesque makeup tips, Fleshmob.co.uk should be your first port of all. The next time you see a bunch of apparent strangers start to spontaneously dance in the street, don’t accept this as a sign that society as a whole can’t take it anymore and everyone has gone mad all at once; they’re probably just users of Mobile Clubbing, which is a bit like a guerrilla form of Silent Disco. A lot of bodies flailing around in silence might be considered art by some people, but Improv Everywhere take spontaneous mass participation to the next level. They aren’t strictly a flash-mobbing organisation, but they occupy similar conceptual territory: co-ordinating over 60 “missions” which have been carefully documented, which means we can all enjoy their mass redhead protests and the heartwarming tale of arranging a big audience for a tiny local rock band. If all this has inspired you to set up your own event, xFlashMobs provide the technological framework to allow you to do just that, which is very useful of them. Hooray! Now you just need to find some friends.
David Thair
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related info
 useful linkswww.fleshmob.co.uk mobile clubbing improv everywhere xflashmobs
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see also
 webslinky #151ghosts  webslinky #150healthy eating  webslinky #149dressing up  webslinky #148island life  webslinky #149 embarrassment webslinky #148visualising data  webslinkyarchive books  books and comics archive Author interviews and reviews from 2002 to 2008. art  art archive Watch artist interviews and see images from British exhibitions. |
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