An
Internet performance artist is a person who pulls strange stunts on the
web, for their own sheer fancy. While companies have hired marketers to come up with unusual Internet promotion for their products, they are rarely as unique and news-worthy as those pulled by amateurs. Many don't consider themselves to be "
performance artists",
Stunts by Internet performance artists
- A man claimed he had travelled back from the future, giving detailed accounts of his post-present day on a now defunct web forum. It gained much attention on Internet. The IP address of the poster was completely untracable, despite the best attempts of many hackers to identify the location of this presumed prankster. If it were indeed true, this future unfortunately had too many similarities to Back to the Future and other science-fiction movies, including a time machine quite reminesent of a Delorian.
2001
- Paint the Moon - On two dates, James Downey encouraged all the people of Earth with laser pens to aim them at the moon. Though many responded back with e-mails notifing Downey of their participation, the project was a failure. Eric Van Stryland, director of Orlando's Center for Research in Electro-Optics and Lasers at the University of Central Florida noted to USA Today that although it's "still a fun idea", such a project would need "at least a few million billion red laser pointers to see a big red spot on the moon."
2003
- Nobel Prize For Jo - James Downey sets up a site to encourage Harry Potter fans to send letters to the organisers of the Nobel Prize for Literature, in attempt to get JK Rowling's book nominated. No letters are recevied by the scholarly foundation, albeit a small 100 e-mails came in. Such is for the better, Nobel doesn't accept nominations from the public.
