There was a local group that tried to do similar missions, but not quite to the same aplomb. I decided to give them a chance and tried to join a flash mob dance mission, but it was a little awkward. I'm not giving up though. I did do a pseudo-flash mob at the end of February, but I'm not fully satisfied with my flash-mob experiences. I know that there will be more opportunities in the future, and I fully intend to be a flash-mob veteran.
Although I love the scripted IE missions, I am happy to participant their other missions, in this case, the Luminato Mp3 Experiment. IE has been doing them for a couple years now in NY, but other cities are now also able to take part (yippee!). Same goes for their scripted No Pants Missions, but I'm not brave enough to take part in that one.
The premise of the Mp3 Experiments is that everyone downloads the same audio file, loads it onto a personal audio device, agents synchronize their watches, meet at a predetermined spot at a specific time and start playing the audio file at a predetermined time. The agents then listen and act/dance/sing/complete the 'whatever' they're told to do through their headphones. As with all of the missions, agents are not supposed to tell non-agents that they are part of a mission.
If you couldn't already tell, I was really stoked to be able to participate in this mission. Participation did have its challenges, however. The first, getting a personal audio device. Sure, I live in the era of MP3 players, i-gadgets, and the like, but I don't own such a device. I barely have a cell phone and it is a hand-me-down. I'm not a luddite, I just don't feel the need to have these specific devices. I don't find it terribly important to be able to privately listen to something while in public. A friend laughed at me when I told him that I like to listen to the world instead, but it's true. So, the most difficult part about becoming an agent for this mission was having the equipment to do so. There were many people whom I was able to borrow audio-devices from, but as I was planning for the mission, I couldn't help but think about accessibility issues. Definitely a by-product of my field, I pondered what the organizers took for granted, who they might be alienating, and what they could have done differently to make the mission more accessible. As this was the first time that I seemed to be 'excluded' for such a trivial thing, my mind started racing about these issues. Yes, I know that this example is a little far-fetched, but it is proof that things are more meaningful when you can make a personal connection to it. I was able to think about issues that often arise in my field in a different way. Wow, I really digressed this time.
So, with a borrowed MP3 player and headphones in tow, I journeyed over to the assigned meeting point of my birth month group. I had no idea
how many people would turn up for this event, nor what kind of demographic it would be but I guess that's just another surprise of it all. I'd say the average age of participants was 20-35 with of course some tykes and more mature folks sprinkled in for good measure (a-ha...what did I say about accessibility issues! Just kidding.).It was lovely to hear the familiar voice of Steve welcoming us to the mission. We eased into the mission by stretching individually and then doing some activities that had use interact with some other agents. I wonder if Steve plans the flow of these missions so that we slowly develop our comfort level instead of jarring us into doing zany tasks. As in, having us do things individually in our own space, then find out who else is participating, sharing our space by having us minimally interact, then developing the amount of interaction, and then having us do more and more non-normative things. I must the be only person who reads into missions.
Agents were divided up into two group based on birth month and each group started in a different location. We did some tasks in these groups in these separate locations. The location that I started in was in a park that was accessible to the public, but far enough away from the busy traffic that drivers may notice people in coloured shirts doing something, but not entirely sure what was going on. There was construction around the are, so I think it didn't get as much foot traffic as it usually would.
So, to bring us into a more public space we walked through the streets on our way to a second location where we would meet up with the
other group. Before we went on our way, we were told some of the ground rules of the mission, in that we needed to blend in and act like we weren't doing anything special. We were told that if we had disguises, it might help us to blend in. So we gave ourselves finger-moustaches.Our journey to the next meeting point was well organized. We had police escorts, Luminato volunteers watching over us, and a girl with a multi-coloured hat leading the way. It was quite impressive. It was during our walk when it became obvious to me that there were a lot of us participating, and also a lot of people not participating. The looks of those who happened to stumble upon our mob or those in their vehicles who were equally intrigued at what was going on. No one approached me to ask what was going on, but my lip- and body language-reading skills told me that they had no idea what was happening but loved it all the same.
So these are all pictures that I took during the mission. I wanted to take more, but it would have meant not participating in the mission to its fullest extent. Some previous Mp3 Experiments ask agents to bring certain things that they may need for the mission. In this mission all we needed was a device that could take a picture. Some examples of activities that we were asked to do were: have a thumb-war with another person, have a square-dance, take naps on the floor (I would have loved an aerial shot of this), freeze in place, give high-fives to non-agents, play follow the leader with a non-agent, take pictures of other agents, play human twister, and play freeze tag.
The two groups converged in Metro Square (seems to be a hotbed of action these days - are they trying to make it a place for things to happen?) and kind of interrupted an event that was taking place
onstage. We played more games, took more naps, and even got to watch ourselves in the jumbotron. This picture was taken around the same time that the picture from my teaser post was taken. As a green-shirted folk who was stuck in the middle of the bulls eye (oh, yeah - we played human darts too) for a wee while, I figured I would snap a couple pictures while waiting for the rest of the colours to create the outer rings.I must have started my track a couple seconds after many other folks, because throughout the mission, I seemed to be doing things towards the tail end of everyone else. This was not very convenient for the portion of the mission in which we played tag.
The mission lasted for about 40minutes. Sounds like a long time, but it was over too quickly. Although I enjoyed myself immensely, after the fact, I was a little disappointed when I realized that most (if not all) of our tasks were ones that had been used in other years. As I've seen highlights of other Mp3 Experiments, I would have liked to do something a little different that really would have given me a chance to be impressed with their creativity. This is not to say that I didn't appreciate the event and that I didn't enjoy it. Of course I did! I enjoyed everything about it (except for being tagged before I knew what was happening - doh!). I liked being an agent, I liked having a dance-party, I liked playing games, I liked taking naps, I liked doing crazy-walks, and I liked seeing the reaction of non-agents.
So, Mission complete and I can't wait for the next one!
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