(YouTube link)
The folks from Improv Everywhere staged an art gallery opening on the 23rd Street subway platform in Manhattan. They had all the trappings: an open bar (serving cider), a coat check attendant, a cello player for ambiance, and nicely-dressed art patrons. The "art" displayed was the signs, graffiti, and objects already found in the subway! For example, this description was attached to a wall phone:
Telephone Line (2002)
Metropolitan Transit Authority in collaboration with Telecom
This homage to the urgency of communication is meant to highlight the recent necessity, from instant to instant, to maintain the potential for instantaneous, world-wide contact from any location, at any time. That a conversation from such a location would be abruptly interrupted by an arriving train suggests the artist’s intent to lampoon the perceived dependence on telecommunication.
Commuters passing by didn't know what to make of the performance, but some ended up really enjoying themselves at the gallery opening! Link -via Metafilter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nbkbss7i5s
So of course the police tried to break it up.
I often wondered about this when I see how it works when ordinary everyday stuff ends up in museums or galleries: The moment an object passes those like magical doors and gets the stamp of "acknowledged example of the surroundings of Humanity in any way, shape or form", it is handled with gloves, ends up on some pedestal and is is treated like Holy- In museums and galleries one does not run, yell, speak loud. But one does walk around in awe, full of wonder and deep thoughts.
Why? It still stays that same stupid thing that you wondered about why your grandma or your neighbour still uses it while there's tons of cleverer stuff out there that is much better. But still you find it on that pedestal, behind that security-barrier and so you almost automatically like revere it at least a bit.
And so when you bring that atmosphere right to the natural environment of the objects in question, the environment itself becomes sacred in some ...daft way.
Great project, awesome. Makes at least me thinking... :-D