Proxemics/Flash Mobs
The importance of non-verbal communication in space is a critical concept developed in Edward T. Hall‘s seminal book, The Hidden Dimension. In the text, Hall lays out a proximity-based framework of Public, Social, Personal, and Intimate spaces. These Proxemics, “the interrelated observations and theories of man’s use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture,”[1] acutely express the importance of non-verbal communication in spaces and across cultures.
Edward T. Hall’s model of Proxemics.
While two friends may be comfortable sitting close enough that they can see the flush of each other’s cheeks, it is unlikely that two unacquainted individuals in public will be willing to be so close. Social relations, Hall argues, are an essential element of how people use space. For example, when asking a stranger for directions, you may feel that your guide invades your personal space if in the course of responding they get close enough so that you can smell their breath. In Hall’s conceptual framework, such close proximity in social space is a taboo. Alternately, you may lean in to a close friend’s intimate space to relay some private detail of a conversation with a look of your eyes.
Although the hidden rules governing social behavior in space are rarely made explicit, these examples of non-verbal communication illustrate how proxemics are nonetheless intrinsic to culture. Through detailed observation, Hall was able to describe the remarkable extent to which these rules exist. The pervasiveness of his findings makes the phenomena of flash mobs, enabled by digital technologies, all the more fascinating.
[1] Edward T. Hall. The Hidden Dimension. 1st ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), 1
Edward T. Hall’s model of Proxemics.
While two friends may be comfortable sitting close enough that they can see the flush of each other’s cheeks, it is unlikely that two unacquainted individuals in public will be willing to be so close. Social relations, Hall argues, are an essential element of how people use space. For example, when asking a stranger for directions, you may feel that your guide invades your personal space if in the course of responding they get close enough so that you can smell their breath. In Hall’s conceptual framework, such close proximity in social space is a taboo. Alternately, you may lean in to a close friend’s intimate space to relay some private detail of a conversation with a look of your eyes.
Although the hidden rules governing social behavior in space are rarely made explicit, these examples of non-verbal communication illustrate how proxemics are nonetheless intrinsic to culture. Through detailed observation, Hall was able to describe the remarkable extent to which these rules exist. The pervasiveness of his findings makes the phenomena of flash mobs, enabled by digital technologies, all the more fascinating.
[1] Edward T. Hall. The Hidden Dimension. 1st ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), 1
Flash mobs are groups coordinated by digital communication that deploy coordinated social activity in a specific place. Since 2003, when Harper’s editor Bill Wasik organized what is considered the first flash mob—a facetious “love rug” shopping expedition in a Macy’s department store—flash mobs have generally been seen as “quirky, artistic gatherings organized on the Internet.”[1]
The San Francisco Pillow FIght Flash Mob. The following rules circulated widely: “1) Tell everyone you know about PILLOW FIGHT!!! 2) Wait for the Ferry Building clock to strike 6:00pm 3) Don’t hit anyone with out a pillow (unless they want it) 4) Don’t hit anyone with a camera 5) HAVE FUN!!!
A quintessential example of one of these playful flash mobs is the now annual Valentine’s Day pillow fight in San Francisco. The first pillow fight in San Francisco in 2006 was coordinated via e-mail, blogs, and online social networks, but flash mob pillow fights were already an online phenomena, or “meme”. As the Ferry Building bell tower tolled at 6:00pm, hundreds of pillow-armed warriors began to battle at Justin Herman plaza. (And hundreds of digital photographers snapped photos of the event and uploaded the images to the Internet.) Following the instructions distributed over the Internet, the fight went off without a hitch. Proxemics, as they had been observed by Edward T. Hall, however, were completely abandoned as people that had never met before slugged each other with objects from their bedrooms. Thanks to computer-mediated-communication, the rules had changed.
[1] Clay Shirky. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. (New York: Penguin, 2008),165; and Alfred Lubrano, “What’s behind ‘flash mobs’?” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28 2010, accessed via http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20100328_What_s_behind__flash_mobs__.html on 4-26-2010.
The San Francisco Pillow FIght Flash Mob. The following rules circulated widely: “1) Tell everyone you know about PILLOW FIGHT!!! 2) Wait for the Ferry Building clock to strike 6:00pm 3) Don’t hit anyone with out a pillow (unless they want it) 4) Don’t hit anyone with a camera 5) HAVE FUN!!!
A quintessential example of one of these playful flash mobs is the now annual Valentine’s Day pillow fight in San Francisco. The first pillow fight in San Francisco in 2006 was coordinated via e-mail, blogs, and online social networks, but flash mob pillow fights were already an online phenomena, or “meme”. As the Ferry Building bell tower tolled at 6:00pm, hundreds of pillow-armed warriors began to battle at Justin Herman plaza. (And hundreds of digital photographers snapped photos of the event and uploaded the images to the Internet.) Following the instructions distributed over the Internet, the fight went off without a hitch. Proxemics, as they had been observed by Edward T. Hall, however, were completely abandoned as people that had never met before slugged each other with objects from their bedrooms. Thanks to computer-mediated-communication, the rules had changed.
[1] Clay Shirky. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. (New York: Penguin, 2008),165; and Alfred Lubrano, “What’s behind ‘flash mobs’?” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28 2010, accessed via http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20100328_What_s_behind__flash_mobs__.html on 4-26-2010.
The kinds of rules that flash mobs can break are not restricted to social norms. In 2006, bloggers in Belarus coordinated a public ice-cream social to protest a fraudulent election. The Belorussian government, prepared to crush any sign of dissent, responded to demonstrators in Oktyabrskaya square violently, hauling away protestors to jail. Others documenting the events with digital cameras and uploaded their images to photo sharing websites, spreading word of the repressive practices of the regime. As Clay Shirky writes in Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, “Nothing says ‘police state’ like detaining kids for eating ice cream.”[1]
Red Shirt protestors in Bangkok organized their demonstrations with digital communication networks.
Twitter and Facebook have been used to organize demonstrations and anti-government action in Moldova, Iran, and Thailand as well.[2] In Thailand, rival factions clad in yellow and red shirts have each coordinated movements with text messages and digital media to occupy public squares and transportation hubs in Bangkok. (The two groups are divided mostly by their opposition or support of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire whose fortune comes partly from ownership of Shin Corp, a major telecommunications corporation.[3])
[1] Shirky, 167.
[2] “Editorial: Iran’s Twitter revolution,” The Washington Times. June 16, 2009, accessed via http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/16/irans-twitter-revolution/ on 4-26-2010; and Ellen Barry. “Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter.” The New York Times, April 7, 2009, accessed via http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08moldova.html on 4-26-2010; and Thomas Fuller, “Thai Protestors Shed Culture of Restraint.” The New York Times, March 31, 2010, accessed via http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/asia/01thai.html?ref=world on 4-26-2010.
[3] Luisa Kroll. “Thaksin Shinawatra Says Goodbye to $1.4 billion.” Forbes Blogs. February 27, 2010, accessed via http://blogs.forbes.com/billions/2010/02/27/thaksin-shinawatra-says-goodbye-to-1-4-billion/ on 4-26-2010.
Red Shirt protestors in Bangkok organized their demonstrations with digital communication networks.
Twitter and Facebook have been used to organize demonstrations and anti-government action in Moldova, Iran, and Thailand as well.[2] In Thailand, rival factions clad in yellow and red shirts have each coordinated movements with text messages and digital media to occupy public squares and transportation hubs in Bangkok. (The two groups are divided mostly by their opposition or support of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire whose fortune comes partly from ownership of Shin Corp, a major telecommunications corporation.[3])
[1] Shirky, 167.
[2] “Editorial: Iran’s Twitter revolution,” The Washington Times. June 16, 2009, accessed via http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/16/irans-twitter-revolution/ on 4-26-2010; and Ellen Barry. “Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter.” The New York Times, April 7, 2009, accessed via http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08moldova.html on 4-26-2010; and Thomas Fuller, “Thai Protestors Shed Culture of Restraint.” The New York Times, March 31, 2010, accessed via http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/asia/01thai.html?ref=world on 4-26-2010.
[3] Luisa Kroll. “Thaksin Shinawatra Says Goodbye to $1.4 billion.” Forbes Blogs. February 27, 2010, accessed via http://blogs.forbes.com/billions/2010/02/27/thaksin-shinawatra-says-goodbye-to-1-4-billion/ on 4-26-2010.
Amsterdam is home to a fascinating project that demonstrates how flash mobs, are in fact primarily about breaking social rules (and not strictly about digital communication). The LIGNA group experiments with “concepts and the production of performative audio plays in order to find out how radio can intervene in public and controlled spaces, so that its public nature reappears in the form of uncontrollable situations.” Their Radio Ballet project used a pre-Internet technology, radio, to coordinate activity in public places to give “the dispersed radio listeners the opportunity to subvert the regulations of the space.”[1] The fact that LIGNA is able to generate what is essentially a flash mob without using Twitter, Facebook, or text messages highlights how the essential character of a flash mob involves setting up a new set of social rules regarding space—the method used to share these rules is flexible.
Radio Ballet in Amsterdam
[1] “English Version - Radio Ballet LIGNA “ Accessed via http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=politiek&articleid=62935 on 4-26-2010.
Radio Ballet in Amsterdam
[1] “English Version - Radio Ballet LIGNA “ Accessed via http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=politiek&articleid=62935 on 4-26-2010.