Art in Odd Places Pt 3 - Silent Sky

So there was one piece of art last weekend that I became a part of. It was called a Silent Sky. The artist Robert Sweere.

Has been shooting images of people laying silently, looking at the sky (or just laying there with their eyes closed) all over the world. I was part of picture number 47. I'd seen him do picture number 46 on Friday. Here's what that looked like.



Here were a couple pictures I took of him taking this shot.




The piece I was in was much smaller. There were two other women and I that took part Sarah, and Alexis.



Our job was simple, or so I thought,. We were supposed to lie on the ground, contemplate either looking at the sky or what not for 30 min. We were to lie silently and stay there unless we thought we were going to die or something. Simple enough, right?

Did I mention we're lying on the ground in Union Square?

That made for some interesting experiences as people were walking around us and we were trying to remain still and silent.

The first five minutes or so i must say I think i felt a little more panicked than anything else. Since i was on the ground looking up, i could see things moving around me, but not really see who was there or making noise around me. It was a little disconcerting.

But like anything else in life, after a little while you get used to the sounds and situation and relax...

There were some people who were trying to keep me from relaxing though. I remember three different people who wanted to disrupt what we were doing, even though they did not know what that was. The first was a woman that came up on my side and asked if we wanted a watermelon mint. Really? The second annoyance was a little more threatening. It was a man that came up on my side and started talking about us like pieces of meat and ended with 'wrap them up i'll take em all', and third a woman who walked up to my side (yes, again.. I seemed to draw the rude people) to try and interrupt me to ask me if I was meditating. And again I thought, really? You would interrupt someone that you thought might be meditating to ask? Really?

My main thought there was I was very surprised at how rude they were. I would never think of doing that to people. It's just rude.

There were other moments that were cute. I know I am in a lot of tourist's pictures. They would carefully walk up by us and snap a shot. They didn't know who we were or why we were there, but they wanted to have a picture with us.

I had another moment of panic relating to my boots. They were new and I was not sure if I had removed the little sticker from the store that had been on the bottom of them.... I found out later I hadn't, but it was ok, the picture he choose doesn't really show that. I know, how trivial is that? What can I say, I have my moments...

There were also just interesting moments where there was such contradiction while I was there – I was watching the leaves in the tree above me sway ever so slightly, in a mild breeze, while hearing the nonstop, super-busy bustle of the city around me. It was a really neat conflict of visual versus audio.

At the end of our 30 minutes Robert interviewed each of us as to what we were thinking and experiencing during the shoot. I'm pretty sure I said the same thing there as I have here. I am not sure what will become of that video, but it was pleasure being a part of his project.

As a post-shoot note, It also helped me meet Alexis and Sarah who are lovely ladies and invited me to Path Cafe in the Village, where I had a great dinner and enjoyed some fantastic acoustic music. But I suppose that is a blog for another day.