Mike Arauz's Blog – The Archives

(Check out my dramatic death scene at the 2.18 mark.)

Charlie Todd and the Improv Everywhere crew just posted the full reports from this year's 4 Mp3 Experiments in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Toronto.

I've participated in 4 of the 5 Mp3 experiments so far, and every one of them has been an awe-inspiring experience.

This year's New York event included over 1,000 participants.

I like to call this type of event Spontaneous Virtually-directed Participatory Theater. It's a mouthful, I know, so let me break it down. It's completely spontaneous because no one knows before the event what they are going to do (you don't listen to the mp3 track until it's time to start). The participants' actions are directed by a virtual being, a voice in the audio track. It's participatory (this is self-explanatory). And it's a new form of theater in which the performers are simultaneously the audience. A large group of people come together (in the real world) and a story is told by performers to an audience.

Here are a few recent technological and the internet developments that helped to make this possible:

• Content distribution, digital video and photo production, and audio production costs are approaching zero. Improv Everywhere has attracted a huge global fan community by being able to easily document their missions and share them online.


• Everyone has an iPod. Anyone who has ever ridden the subway in New York knows that iPods are more now common accessories than briefcases.


• People are willing to work with a group of complete strangers to take coordinated action based solely on a common appreciation for values demonstrated by a loose community formed around entertaining content.

What else do you think is the key to mobilizing such a huge fan community to take action in the real world?