In today’s digitally connected world it is easy to forget the feeling one feels when being present to experience a live performances. The Knight Foundation’s Random Acts of Culture program is making the once elite world of live music and artistic performances accessible to everyday people with the use of flash mobs. Over the past two years, they have become centerpiece community events throughout the world. While some flash mobs have incited violence, the majority are done for entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.
Dennis Scholl, VP of arts at the Knight Foundation and creator of the Random Acts of Culture Program explained,
“These are interesting ways to connect communities to culture. As society changes and we get deeper into our digital lives, we tend to move away from the ways we entertained ourselves previously.”
In the past two years Knight Foundation’s program has somehow planted over 1,000 flash mob performances throughout the United States. In collaboration with arts organizations in eight U.S. cities (Akron, Ohio; Charlotte, North Carolina; Detroit; Macon, Georgia; Miami; Philadelphia; San Jose, California; and St. Paul, Minnesota) they have brought seemingly spontaneous performances to malls, farmer’s markets, office building lobbies, train stations, and elsewhere.
To see the exact places and arts organizations involved, you can view their public list that tracks performances from 2010 up until June of this year.