Sorting Trolley

I spoke about @Platea, the collective I play with, in this post about our previous project. I wanted to fill you in on our first project: The Great Yawn.

originally uploaded by Freya_bean

It was performed on twitter, and so was called a twerformance. Similar to the idea of flash mobs, The Great Yawn was a playful exploration of the potential of synchronised twitter updates, AKA tweets. Individuals scattered across the world followed @Platea on twitter & learnt of (founder & director) @thatwaszen’s idea – but no specifics. Then days before the event the @Platea twitter feed was locked & those who were enthusiastic & were followed back got updates. Then we were told the exciting plan & asked to keep it hush-hush! The Great Yawn saw twerformers tweeting the word yawn at exactly the same time, co-ordinated across different countries and many time zones. This was an exercise in generating multiple tweets in the public timeline with the word yawn in them. There was no set script and we were encouraged to be as creative as we wished with our tweets. We didn’t use a hash tag so as to keep it seemingly spontaneous. This from the blog:

It was a “twerformance art” flash mob, i.e., a statusing (online happening), aimed at examining the twin tensions of Twitter: that it’s boring and mundane and that it’s an exciting place for viral, up-to-the-second news….I [@thatwaszen] chose yawning because of its interesting parallels with Twitter and the way it breaks past the boundaries of digital space and into physical space. As traditional flash mobs’ effectiveness comes from their physicality, this latter part was key. It’s a basic psychological phenomenon that when you see someone yawn or even when you think about yawning, you can’t help but yawn yourself (are you yawning yet?). As I described this concept to @Platea members, a number of them told me they were yawning just thinking about it. And yet, the purpose of yawning is mysterious. Like Twitter, it has an unclear usefulness for human beings, and yet, like Twitter, it is highly contagious and spreads rapidly in social circles.

I tweeted an R.E.M. lyric via tweetlater (now known as socialoomph) as I was asleep at 1:15am.

We had about 100 yawn tweets, 350 followers, photos & screen shots, & other beautiful & artistic interpretations for the twerformance, and oodles and oodles of fun! Check out the recap here. & stay tuned for future project news & reflections. Be sure to follow @Platea &/or join @Platea on Facebook to get yr art on!