Here’s an interview of The Art of the Prank contributor Steve Lambert in this month’s Proximity Magazine:

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Steve Lambert
by James H. Ewert, Jr.
Proximity Magazine, Issue #3
December 11, 2008

Sure, you could call Steve Lambert a prankster, but that would be too simple a title. Lambert”™s shenanigans are intelligent. They have the viewer, victim, participant, or unwitting citizen question something, then answer it as well. Questioning, Lambert believes, is only the beginning. He”™s far more interested in what happens afterwards.

In one project, Lambert manned a table on the campus of UC Davis, among other organizations campaigning for different political and religious causes. His cause was simply stated on a sign, “I WILL TALK WITH ANYONE ABOUT ANYTHING.” In another project, Lambert shut down every McDonald”™s restaurant in Manhattan by having volunteers fan out across the city and place his handmade “Closed for evaluation” signs on all the front doors. Whether it is just initiating dialogue with a stranger, closing a restaurant chain, or creating a video game that rewards players for relaxing, Lambert”™s work has consistently served as a bridge for people to walk across and experience an entirely different world – one less concerned with the passivity of everyday life as it is the domino effect of action.

So yes, Steve Lambert is a prankster some of the time, but he”™s also an artist, an adjunct-lecturer, former class president of a high school he never graduated from, vintage scooter enthusiast, and an anti-advertising executive. Judging by the careful planning and execution of his projects, however, a more apt title might be “scientist.”

Read the entire interview here.