From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:

The 12th Annual No Pants Subway Ride will take place on Sunday, January 13 in New York City. More info with the meeting point and start time will be posted to this site about one week in advance. For now, save the date. You can RSVP on Facebook.

Video from No Pants Subway Ride 2012

Once again we are encouraging folks in other cities around the world to stage their own No Pants Subway Rides on the same day. Regional organizers must fill out this registration form to have their event included. The week before the event we will publish a list of all participating cities along with links to Facebook events. Groups have staged the event on trolleys, light rails, and buses in the past, so don’t let a lack of subway system stop you! 59 cities participated last year. Check the list on this page to see if one happened in your city last year as preference will go to the prior year’s organizers.

If you are unfamiliar with this tradition, you can read the history here: The No Pants Subway Ride.

For our latest mission, we had 100 people camp out in front of a 99 cent store in Manhattan on Black Friday. Participants arrived early in the morning with tents, chairs, and sleeping bags, making it look like they had camped out overnight. When the store opened, the crowd rushed inside and made purchases, buying 99 cent items with glee. Actress Cody Lindquist posed as a local NBC news reporter and conducted interviews with confused and delighted store employees and passersby. Check out the photos and report here.

Click here for more about Improv Everywhere

Update October 20, 2012: Huffington Post reports: Joey Skaggs Created The Celebrity Sperm Bank Hoax To Expose Journalists’ Incompetence

From Joey Skaggs:

In July of 1976, I (aka Giuseppe Scaggoli), as proprietor of the Celebrity Sperm Bank, planned to hold an auction of rock star sperm. The press release said, “We’ll have sperm from the likes of Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and vintage sperm from Jimmy Hendricks. All donations are certified and authenticated.” I asked about 50 actor friends to gather on Waverly Place between 6th Avenue and MacDougal Street in front of my attorney’s brownstone home. Read the rest of the story here and see some images below.

Yesterday, October, 17, 2012, (thanks Chris Cook, John Lundberg & Larry Croft for the heads-up), a new Celebrity Sperm Bank hoax called Fame Daddy was covered by ITV, the Telegraph, the Globe & Mail, to name a few.

Now they’ve all been caught with their pants down.

(more…)

From Jon T:

Top Firm Gets Unwanted Trophy At Prestigious Banking Awards
hereisthecity.com
October 10. 2012

A group of pranksters gatecrashed an investment banking event at a Mayfair hotel to present Barclays with an award for ‘Innovation in Interest Rate Manipulation’. And the trophy? It was a bottle of Bollinger, of course!

The Daily Telegraph reports that footage has emerged of the activists striking at the Investment Banking Awards at the Sheraton Hotel in Mayfair, which they describe as the ‘Oscars of the financial world’.

The pranksters say:

‘One of 2012′s most profitable scams was the bankers’ ‘innovative’ approach to a key interest rate called LIBOR. Virtually every bank at the event was involved in illegally colluding to rig LIBOR, ensuring that they would always be the winners in the multi-million pound bets they were making on the markets.

When we noticed that this money-spinner had been overlooked in the ceremony, we decided to show up and make sure the LIBOR-riggers got the recognition they deserve’.

image: geishaboy500

Submitted by Lenora:

Updated: Mysterious street artist hoaxes Downtown L.A., signs removed
By Deborah Vankin
LATimes.com
September 19, 2012

A mystery street artist with a sense of humor has turned parts of downtown L.A. into a guerrilla art installation.

A fake city plaque, on the corner of Spring and 2nd streets, attributes a block of palm trees to artist Chris Burden. (Steve Devol/Los Angeles Times / September 18, 2012)

Eight neighborhood landmarks or areas have been marked with official-looking city placards that offer what appear to be background information about the location. One, for instance, says that a downtown dumpster was designed by Andy Warhol.

Though the artworks are unsigned, Culture Monster has learned that they are called “Art Appears” and are the work of the artist who calls himself Wild Life.

[Update, 12:08 p.m. Wednesday: At least two of the signs have been removed since Tuesday, one near City Hall and one near the LAPD headquarters.]

The artist Wild Life was half the duo (with Calder Greenwood) responsible for life-sized papier-mâché installations that sprouted up around town a few months ago, notably as the lounging sunbathers in an open construction pit on 1st Street and Broadway. (more…)

At His Penthouse, a Tête-à-Tête With Columbus
Tatzu Nishi’s ‘Discovering Columbus’ Installation
By Roberta Smith
New York Times
September 21, 2012

“Discovering Columbus,” at Columbus Circle, is on view through Nov. 18. Free timed tickets are available at publicartfund.org.

View more photos here.

If you’ve ever wanted to see what the city’s pre-eminent statue of Christopher Columbus looks like standing on a large coffee table in an upscale New York living room with killer views, now is your chance. Under the auspices of the Public Art Fund, the Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi has built a convincingly appointed penthouse-worthy space around the 13-foot-high marble sculpture of Columbus that has presided over Columbus Circle from a height of 60 feet since it was completed by Gaetano Russo in 1892. In doing so, Mr. Nishi has achieved a nifty bit of Surrealist displacement without moving the sculpture an inch — albeit not quite as nifty as I’d hoped.

To see the work, “Discovering Columbus,” visitors need only procure a free timed ticket, sign a release, climb six flights of stairs and enter the white windowed box that has been built around the figure. It’s a structure that from the outside looks like a pristine outtake from a mansion, albeit one supported by an elaborate network of construction scaffolding that is itself rather attractive. (An elevator is also available.)

Once inside, they will encounter Columbus’s commanding figure, wearing the usual floppy beret and High Renaissance garb, in a spacious interior larger than many New York apartments (over 800 square feet, with 16-foot ceilings). It is outfitted with hardwood floors, area rugs, cushy couches and armchairs, art reproductions, lots of reading material and a remote-free, 55-inch Samsung television screen. Most of this has been provided by Bloomingdale’s; all of it is bathed in natural light, thanks to four large windows facing in three directions. (more…)

Submitted by Tom Tenney, Director, RE/Mixed Media Festival:

EDITOR’S NOTE: The festival’s Kickstarter campaign needs to raise $1313 by Thursday at midnight! If it looks like something you’d like to help fund they’ll be eternally grateful. Watch the video below…

The RE/Mixed Media Festival, now in it’s 3rd year, is an annual celebration of collaborative art-making and creative appropriation. It’s the artists’ contribution to the ongoing conversation about remixing, mashups, copyright law, fair use, and the freedom of artists to access their culture in order to add to and build upon it.

The festival – which this year will take place at the Brooklyn Lyceum – a 3-floor 10,000 sq. ft. venue on the border of the Park Slope and Gowanus neighborhoods of Brooklyn – will feature performances, panel discussions, live musical collaborations, hip-hop, sampling, film & video, DIY, food and drink, DJs, technology, interactive installations, painting, sculpture, software, hacking, and much more!

Read more here.

Thousands gather for NYC secret outdoor dinner
by Verena Dobnik
Associated Press
August 20, 2012

New York (AP) – Guess who came to dinner?

On Monday night in Manhattan, the answer was 3,000 people – all dressed in white, descending on the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The venue was a surprise until just before the flash-mob feast started at 7 p.m. Registered guests got emails telling them where to go.

They brought chairs, tables, food and drink, plus candles and snow white balloons sailing high above the main plaza at sunset. Row after white row filled the space around a high-shooting fountain – free of charge, with legal permits. (more…)

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere

For our latest mission, over 4,000 people participated in an epic water gun battle as part of our ninth annual Mp3 Experiment event.

Participants downloaded an MP3 file and pressed play simultaneously on Governors Island in New York City. The MP3 file contained a series of ridiculous Olympic-themed instructions from narrator “Steve The Omnipotent Voice from Above” that culminated in a massive water gun fight.

We’d like to thank the River to River Festival for hosting the event and SkyCamUsa for helping us get aerial footage with their hexacopter drone.

View more video, photos and info here.

More on Improv Everywhere here.

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:

Car Alarm Symphony

For our latest mission, we made 100 car alarms go off simultaneously in a shopping center parking lot in Staten Island.

After parking their cars, 100 participants grouped together behind a 10-foot tall wall in a dead end on the other side of the lot. Participants were then conducted like an orchestra as they pressed their horn or “panic” buttons on their keyless entry remotes. Shoppers and employees at the Lowe’s and Kohl’s stores were surprised by this unauthorized and mercifully brief project.

(more…)

Orvillecopter Final Test 05/21/2012

This cat-copter is visual artist Bart Jansen’s tribute to his cat Orville, who was named after the aviator Orville Wright. Apparently, Orville loved birds. So, after the cat was killed by a car and Jansen had duly mourned, he turned Orville’s body into a low flying helicopter, named the Orvillecopter.

As Jansen says: “Now he is finally flying with the birds. The greatest goal a cat could ever reach!

Orvillecopter is currently on display at the KunstRai Art Fair in Amsterdam.

Read more here, here and here.

Artists are invited to prepare an artwork in response to this year’s competition theme “Where is the meaning? At the top or at the bottom?”

We use a billboard – the symbol of the modern age consumption – and change it into an object of consideration, reflection and a deep insight into ourselves and the surrounding reality. Our festival is organized by artists in close co-operation with other artists.

There is no entry fee. The Competition is open and all artists interested in billboard art are invited to take part. The works should be submitted by the 20th July, 2012 via electronic mail to the address: artmoves@tlen.pl (more…)

At 11:00 a.m., April 23, 2012, artist Joey Skaggs will lead a band of outraged costumed muppets down to the Goldman Sachs offices at 200 West Street in NYC. Skaggs will be peddling his Mobile Homeless Homes prototype — a low cost alternative living space for the millions of upside-down, underwater or foreclosed homeowners who have lost their houses due to the banking crisis that caused the real estate collapse.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Outraged Homeless Muppets to Converge on Goldman Sachs

“Homelessness is a great American tragedy. Our financial system and government have let us down and we, together, must take a stand to change the way the system works. With over 11 million homes underwater and millions in foreclosure, people are frightened, distressed and angry,” says Joey Skaggs.

Although not a cure, Mobile Homeless Homes (MHH) offers a temporary solution — low cost alternative living spaces for the millions of upside-down, underwater or foreclosed homeowners who have lost their houses due to the banking crisis that caused the real estate collapse. The MHH centerpiece is a camouflage, stealth, mobile home made from a series of connected plastic garbage cans, propelled by a tricycle, that will be undetectable by authorities. It blends into any urban environment. (more…)

From Joey Skaggs:

Mobile Homeless Homes

Submitted by ABOVE:

Blood Diamond

Africa has had a devastating history of blood diamond wars. Blood diamond refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and then sold to finance an invading army’s war efforts, usually in Africa where more than two-thirds of the worlds diamonds are extracted. This site specific social / political word play was painted on the exterior wall of Johannesburg’s largest diamond trader Jewel City. Jewel City is a six-block mega-precinct that serves as a base for some 300 diamond traders as well as South Africa’s Diamond Board and State Traders Association. Jewel City is the largest diamond exporter in the southern hemisphere with over R7-Billion worth of Diamonds being exported every year.

I was able to get away with this diamond wall heist because I told the owners I would paint in big letters “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” on the exterior of their building.

(more…)

From Alex Case:

SF Bay Area ‘Tacocopter’ Deliver Service (Unfortunately) Fake
by David Murphy
March 24, 2012

Never get between a Silicon Valley geek and his or her tacos. That’s the lesson learned from the flurry of reporting this week surrounding the rumored “Tacocopter”— a San Francisco Bay Area delivery service that was alleged to have been able to deliver one’s taco order by way of an unmanned quadrotor.

Any rational individual might start to wonder about the authenticity of a service that’s supposed to air-drop one’s lunch in any given location around the San Francisco Bay Area. First off, that presumes there’s an army of people sitting in a control room somewhere all practicing their flight skills across a roughly 50-mile stretch of land (assuming a Tacocopter could deliver from San Francisco to San Jose). (more…)