In September 2004, Mexican artist Miguel Calderón secretly placed a TV set in a bar in Sao Paulo (Brazil). At a certain moment, an unannounced soccer match showed up in the screen. Mexico was playing against Brazil. Bar customers, who had no idea about the match, thought that somehow they missed the news. People started watching the match. Brazil lost 17-0.
It was all staged. Calderón had carefully re-edited various past games between both teams in order to create something completely impossible. The piece was shown as part of the Sao Paulo Art Biennal.
Our friend Rob Cockerham recently organized an awesome nation-wide prank where pranksters replaced fast food job application pads with the ridiculous fake pads he made. The funniest part of the prank is definitely the application itself, which Rob did an excellent job writing. Check out his site to see how he pulled it off and to read the hilarious questions he included. The Fast Food Job Application Prank at Cockeyed.
BostonSOS sent word of their latest mission, Celebrity for a Night. The group went out to a posh Boston bar, picked a random stranger, and then had agent after agent approach him thinking he was “David Mansfield” a fictitious celebrity who they claimed was a star on the NBC soap opera Passions. His “fans” bought him free drinks and asked for autographs. Eventually the random dude started playing along and other people in the bar bought into it. Seems like a mash-up of sorts of Improv Everywhere’s Ted’s Birthday and Ben Folds missions.
Artist Paul Pescador has been switching salt shakers all over Los Angeles, leaving a stream of mismatched salt & pepper pairs in the wake of his dining experiences.
He explains:
I sit down at a table in a crowded restaurant. I pick up a saltshaker from across the table and place it in my pocket. From my jacket, I pull out a different shaker, one I took from the last restaurant I visited. I carefully place it next to the pepper and order my meal.
Urban Prankster covers pranks, hacks, participatory art, flash mobs, and other creative endeavors that take place in public places in cities across the world. It is edited by Charlie Todd.
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