Urban Prankster » parks

Parisian Swing Sets

Alex Scordelis — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:50:12 +0000

French artist Jerome G. Demuth is turning the streets of Paris into a playground by installing swings around town. Demuth (who also goes by simply “G”) calls the installation, Swing the City.

Paris’s SwinGs from Jerome G. Demuth on Vimeo.

via Wooster Collective

Park(ing) Day 2009
Hobo Living Room
Crosswalk Dominoes

Miranda July’s Eleven Heavy Things

Alex Scordelis — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:04:55 +0000

Miranda July, the performance artist/writer/actress/director best known for her film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, has installed her public art piece Eleven Heavy Things in New York’s Union Square Park. The sculptures, which debuted at the 2009 Venice Biennale, are designed to create photo-ops for passersby who choose to interact with the art.

Adding a Park to an Empty Lot
Park(ing) Day 2009

Invisible Man

Alex Scordelis — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:50:40 +0000

Even invisible people enjoy a leisurely stroll through the woods. This transparent piece was created by Elfo, an Italian artist.

via Vandalog

Invisible Dogs in Brooklyn

Adding a Park to an Empty Lot

Charlie Todd — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:20:15 +0000

Sean Martindale created this lovely project in Toronto. He writes:

For some time now, the spot in has been relatively empty aside from mud, waste and strewn garbage. There’s an application to build condos on the site. It has remained undisturbed since Monday and I watered it yesterday because there hasn’t been any rain lately… Grass is pretty resilient, so it should survive and take root unless/until somebody removes it. Joe Clement assisted me with the install.

via Wooster Collective

Park(ing) Day 2009
No Longer Empty
Crosswalk Dominoes

Red Arrow Project

Alex Scordelis — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:47:03 +0000

At last weekend’s Art Under the Bridge Festival in Brooklyn, artists Jennifer Fisher and Christian Cerrito launched their Red Arrow Project. The project consisted of several floating cursor kites (which were tied to weather balloons) pointing at random locations and encouraging people to be mindful of things they normally might not look at.

Fisher and Cerrito’s floating red arrows may provide some competition with New York’s long-running Yellow Arrow Project.

via PSFK

Park(ing) Day 2009

Charlie Todd — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:56:06 +0000

Today is Park(ing) Day 2009. Groups around the world will turn parking spaces into temporary public parks.

San Francisco art collective REBAR first created “PARK(ing)” in 2005 to re-imagine the potential of the metered parking space. In 2006, in collaboration with TPL, REBAR founded “PARK(ing) Day”: a global exploration of the creative potential of streets.

Here’s a video from Park(ing) Day NYC 2006:

Last year I had a delightful time relaxing in a park on 6th Avenue and 24th Street. If you find a parking space park today in your town, let us know in the comments.

Adding a Park to an Empty Lot
Art in Odd Places 2009

Deluxe Hugs

Charlie Todd — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:34:20 +0000

Mediocre Films played a prank on one of the “Free Hugs” guys by offering Deluxe Hugs for $2.

Here’s the original Free Hugs video from YouTube (43 million views and counting):

Ant Battle Thurs at 2 PM

Charlie Todd — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:17:06 +0000

Artist d.billy installed this sign in Central Park recently. Be there Thursday at 2 PM with a magnifying glass to check it out! (Though be careful not to melt the participants.)

Subway Sign Marriage Proposal
Horse Drawn Hummer
Miranda July’s Eleven Heavy Things

Plastic Kid

Charlie Todd — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:13:19 +0000

This caught my eye in Union Square a couple of weeks ago. From a distance I thought I might have stumbled onto a Mark Jenkins tape sculpture. He’s in town with a solo show at Stricola. It turned out that the dummy was the work of a group of high school students from the Lyons Community School in Brooklyn. I caught them watching me and went over to investigate. They were doing this Jenkins-inspired project for a class and were there to observe people’s reactions. Cool!

Ghost Hole at the Putting Lot
Sleepers
Red Arrow Project

Tweenbots

Charlie Todd — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:24:58 +0000

Tweenbots is a new project by Kacie Kenzer. She explains:

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

(Thanks Haley and Danielle)

Smell Graffiti