Do you consider these fake NYT distributed in NYC, "disruptive realism"? http://www.psfk.com/2008/11/free-fake-copies-of-the-new-york-times.html

Rethink, an advertising agency based in Vancouver have used these types of techniques for thier clients in the past. It's great because it takes the familar and transforms it. Thier website is not the easisest to navigate, but under their work archives is a portfolio piece for a company called the Bike Doctor. What they did is add to exisitng road stencils for bike lanes, giving each bike a flat tire and adding the name and address of the company.

[...] View Dave Hoffer’s thoughts on DR [...]

See also the legacy of hacks at MIT and Seattle's emerging tradition of sculpture park hacks. I particularly admire the "coming soon" fake-signage genre.

The fake NYT was great, but does it count as Disruptive Realism when you hack the media?

I think the missions that can be identified by bystanders like, ‘Frozen Grand Central,’ ‘Human Mirror’ and ‘No Pants,’ can more easily be defined as Disruptive Realism, but the examples you mention are disruptive and do change the reality of the participants.

Providing a little happiness isn’t a bad thing.

Just because the expression’s participants aren’t in on the joke, it’s ok, as long as they’re not getting hurt. The ‘Best Gig Ever’ didn’t seem to end with the band being told about the mission (unless I missed it in the post) and they ended up with some publicity. This mission was posted on RollingStone.com and printed in Spin magazine. DAVID SPRAGUE, the writer of the RollingStone piece, seems to see the mission as hurtful, but perhaps he simply has no sense of humor. I would defer to the members of Ghosts of Pasha [http://www.ghostsofpasha.com/] to know whether they feel slighted or not but since they have a link to the RollingStone.com article on their site, and note in the Spin article that they’re slightly more successful now than they were, that they don’t feel bad about the mission. Both links can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/2lzknr

I’m not an advocate of any expression knowingly or unknowingly hurting anyone else, but in the case of the 'War of Worlds' broadcast, it is definitely Disruptive Realism. The mission by Improv Everywhere titled, ‘Suicide Jumper’ [http://tinyurl.com/227cam] could have upset people, but the scene ends happily and I’m sure the intention wasn’t malicious. It should be noted that although this mission and ‘Food Court Musical’ are disruptive, they’re less real, and therefore may not fall under my definition. Both of these missions can be found at: http://improveverywhere.com/

So my opinion is that it’s not unethical to alter a persons’ day for the better, with an expression that sends a positive message. I’m not an ethicist though so you should ask Randy Cohen of the New York Times. ethicist@nytimes.com

I'm going to play devil's advocate here a bit. Going off of your last statement (it's not unethical to alter a person's day for the better, with an expression that sends a positive message): what about if/when the person finds out that it was all false?

Improv Everywhere clearly has the best intentions in the moment: to make a person's day a bit better. However, when they post the video of the prank online for millions to view, there is a strong likelihood that some of the people who were pranked will discover that the experience that had made them real was actually fabricated. There are a few reactions that may be had in the situation:
1) The person may think it makes their exciting story even more exciting (and THEN i found out that the wedding proposal was actually all staged!)
2) The person may feel a bit saddened that the experience wasn't real (i was so happy when i thought that someone would actually propose on the subway...)
3) The person may then become skeptical of reality (if i ever see someone proposing on the subway again, i'll think it's a prank.)

The Ghosts of Pasha had a mixed reaction once they discovered that Best Gig Ever was a prank. They had thought it was bizarre that 40 unknown people had shown up knowing all their lyrics, but they had just written it off as a stroke of awesome luck. When they first found out that the audience was fake, they had feelings basically of betrayal (with the realization that they didn't actually have as many fans as they thought they did, and that their best concert was actually played to bunch of pranksters). This was about the time when they were interviewed on This American Life (which can be found here: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sc...). However, as is made clear by their website, they did ultimately recognize that they were getting publicity out of the prank, and so ultimately it did benefit them. But does that discount those initial negative feelings?

Even though this isn't the best analogy, I'm going to give it: when someone finds out that their spouse cheated on them and then hid it from them to prevent them from getting hurt, that person is very likely to feel betrayed not only because of the cheating, but also because the truth was hidden from them. They were being presented with a false reality that made them happy, and then they discovered that reality was fictitious, and that actual reality is not as great as the false reality.

Obviously finding out that you've been cheated on is much worse than finding out that you didn't actually awesome fans, or that you didn't actually witness a marriage proposal, or that you didn't actually reunite two estranged lovers. But the comparison still calls something to light, I think.

Finally, the third thing I mentioned in that list is also important, I think. The idea that you are then approaching life a bit more skeptically does not seem to be very positive. It doesn't seem to be promoting a sense of wonder in the world, but instead a more distrustful eye....looking for the clues to see whether someone is deceiving you, even if only to make you happy.

I feel like such a cynic here, but it's just on my mind! (I'm currently writing my thesis on urban pranks, and am heavily basing it on Improv Everywhere).

[...] a few weeks old but still worth pointing out as another recent example of "Disruptive Realism" - a clever twist on the slogan of the New York Times: 'All the news we hope to [...]

Dear Dad,

I cant believe you are turning 758. Its completely disrupting my reality. In fact did you know that throughout history there have been many disruptions of reality?

Gandhi for example - total self-disrupter cos he ate a rat to cure his fear of rodents. Yum!! Jesus - big prankster with the water and wine. My 300 pound neighbor who has food delivered - er, thats just disturbing.

But I'm sure there's too many to mention. If I could think of them.

I love you Dad!!!

You're totally inspiring and notice what other people do so well!!!

[...] לינק נוסף לסיום. [...]

I'm currently completing my major work for a Drama unit in my final year of study and am doing a paper on Improv Everywhere. After stumbling on your article it has become a major component of my work, as I am now gearing the concept of the paper to the involvement of the audience.

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Cool. Audience participation is huge part of Improv Everywhere and Disruptive Realism. The internet has lent a level of depth and scale to projects that prior to this had to be experienced in a theater. I recently read Steve Martins book:

http://www.amazon.com/Born-Standing-Up-Comics...

In it, he talks about a moment where he played a college or something and when the show was over, the audience was reluctant to leave. So he goes outside and the audience follows him and he finds an empty swimming pool, has everyone get in and he proceeds to body surf/swim across them. He talks about how strange it was to him and how completely different it was from anything else he'd seen or heard of. Andy Kaufman used to bring audiences out for milk and cookies. What a great extension of the performance. Kind of a tangent but two examples of audience participation. I'm sure you've heard of both.
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I was wondering what your thoughts were on the importance of the audience to 'disruptive realism' as a whole and more specifically, to Improv Everywhere. I guess what I'm trying to prove is whether or not we can experience a theatrical moment without knowing it.

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Good question. The easy answer is that the audience is integral to both and multilayered. Integral because how can you have a mission like Best Gig Ever without the band, the rest of the present audience and the secondary audience who sees the videos on the web. Which is the multilayered aspect. The band thinks they've got this big audience, the people who really came to see the band are almost getting two performances, the band and the mission fans, and then everyone on the web gets to enjoy the whole scene from a third perspective. I think you could even make an argument that the band themselves is also, kind of an audience.

Reverse Graffiti and the Bus Stop Swing have observers of the situation who pass the bus stop or instance of Reverse Graffiti and who's reality is disrupted. The Bus Stop Swing has the additional audience of the person who actually sits in the swing. The direct observer and direct participant are both primary and again, anyone caught on video observing or participating and viewed online is a secondary audience.

However, the more difficult answer is that neither has an audience and neither are performances.

The Improv Everywhere's missions, Reverse Graffiti, Fake NY Times, Bus Stop Swing, are all artificial situations that I call Disruptive Realism. All of them disrupt the normal pattern that people are currently in and change (hopefully for the better) those peoples reality. The examples are so diverse; MP3 experiments to Grand Central Freeze. Neither has an "audience" or are a "performance," at least not in the traditional sense. You might argue that Food Court Musical is because the mission is close to a traditional performance, but it still falls outside the traditional definition.

I prefer the terms observers and participants as opposed to audience. And of course, the observers, participants and secondary observers who view the online vid's are STILL crucial to the expression.

As to your second point, some of the missions from IE like Romantic Comedy Cab don't necessarily reveal themselves to the primary observers or participants but only to the secondary observers who see the mission online. In a way, this instance is like a friendly grift. Rather than tricking the individual into parting with money, the persons day is (hopefully) made better by being an unwitting participant. These people are still needed but in this case, they don't know.

The MP3 Experiment is wholly different. In this expression, the participants are fully aware of their participation and the bystanders who happen to be there as well, are clearly seeing something going on but the participants ARE the "audience" in that they take part, do the fun MP3 stuff and get to see themselves online later. So they're both the participants AND the secondary observers. Same with the Grand Central Freeze. Participants are fully aware, observers can't not be aware and then they can both watch later online, along with other secondary observers.

You could easily examine each example of Disruptive Realism to determine who the participants, observers and secondary observers are, why each would be interested in participating or observing and how the expression of DR fostered this.

Sounds like fun.

I hope that helps and good luck with your work.
dave