Category Archives: Spectacle

Francis Alÿs, “Narcotourism” (1996)

“I will walk in the city over the course of seven days, under the influence of a different drug each day. My trip will be recorded through photographs, notes, or any other media that become relevant.”

“Thus, the experiment conducted by the artist consisted of imbibing the following substances May 5 11 of that year: spirits, hashish, speed, heroin, cocaine, valium, and ecstasy. The process of creating the work involved preserving (ostensibly) a state of intoxication for fourteen hours each day. Alys later displayed a page of text, including diaristic accounts of his experiences (“Awareness of a change of state, but not followed by a visual echo. Auditory acuity enhanced. Appetite gone. Smoking diminished. At night, nausea and thirst.”) and a photographic image of the artist’s walking feet clad in Converse high-tops was used to represent the piece.” [credit]

Further reading:

  • “Walk Ways” exhibition catalog. Essay by Stuart Horodner. Foreword by Judith Richards.

Francis Alÿs “The Collector” (2001)

For an indeterminate period of time, the magnetized metal collector (it looks roughly like a geometric dog on wheels) takes a daily walk through the streets and gradually builds up a coat mad of any metallic residue lying in its path. This process goes on until the collector is completely covered by its trophies.

Further reading:

  • “Walk Ways” exhibition catalog. Essay by Stuart Horodner. Foreword by Judith Richards.

John Cleese “Minister of Silly Walks”

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“The Ministry of Silly Walks” is a sketch from the Monty Python comedy troupe’s television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus, series 2, episode 1, which is entitled “Face the Press”. The episode first aired on 15 September 1970. A shortened version of the sketch was performed for Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

A satire on bureaucratic inefficiency, the sketch involves John Cleese as a bowler-hatted civil servant in a fictitious British government ministry responsible for developing silly walks through grants. Cleese, throughout the sketch, walks in a variety of silly ways. It is these various silly walks, more than the dialogue, that have earned the sketch its popularity. Cleese has cited the physical comedy of Max Wall, probably in character as Professor Wallofski, as important to its conception.

Ben Beaumont-Thomas in The Guardian writes, “Cleese is utterly deadpan as he takes the stereotypical bowler-hatted political drone and ruthlessly skewers him. All the self-importance, bureaucratic inefficiency and laughable circuitousness of Whitehall is summed up in one balletic extension of his slender leg.”[1]

“Christopher Street Liberation Day March” (1970)

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The first Pride march for gay rights was held in New York City on June 28, 1970. The event — officially known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March — was spearheaded by a group of activists that included Craig Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, Linda Rhodes and Brenda Howard, for the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

The march’s route covered about 50 blocks and drew just a few thousand participants. Though the numbers were small, marches in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles that year eventually led to hundreds of Pride parades.

This was an important move towards civil rights, or guarantees of equal social opportunities and protection under the law, regardless of race, religion, sexual identity, or other characteristics.

Read the full article: How the Pride March Made History – The New York Times

Martin Luther King, Jr. “March on Washington” (1963)

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The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred August 28, 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.

This event is one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement

Mahatma Gandhi, “Salt March” (1930)

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The Salt March, which took place from March to April 1930 in India, was an act of civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi to protest British rule in India. During the march, thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from his religious retreat near Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea coast, a distance of some 240 miles. The march resulted in the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself. India finally was granted its independence in 1947.

Salt Tax

Britain’s Salt Act of 1882 prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in their diet.

Indian citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from their British rulers, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also charged a heavy salt tax. Although India’s poor suffered most under the tax, all Indians required salt.

Mohandas Gandhi and Satyagraha

After living for two decades in South Africa, where Mohandas Gandhi fought for the civil rights of Indians residing there, Gandhi returned to his native country in 1915 and soon began working for India’s independence from Great Britain.

Defying the Salt Act, Gandhi reasoned, would be an ingeniously simple way for many Indians to break a British law nonviolently.

Gandhi declared resistance to British salt policies to be the unifying theme for his new campaign of “satyagraha,” or mass civil disobedience.

Salt March Begins

First, Gandhi sent a letter on March 2, 1930 to inform the Viceroy Lord Irwin that he and the others would begin breaking the Salt Laws in 10 days. Then, on March 12, 1930, Gandhi set out from his ashram, or religious retreat, at Sabermanti near Ahmedabad with several dozen followers on a trek of some 240 miles to the coastal town of Dandi on the Arabian Sea.

Todd Shalom, Elastic City (2003-2019)


Elastic City intends to make its audience active participants in an ongoing poetic exchange with the places we live in and visit.

Artists are commissioned by Elastic City to create their own participatory walks for the public, often using sensory-based techniques, reinvented folk rituals and other exercises to investigate and intervene in the daily life of the city, its variously defined communities, and the politics of individual and group identity.

In 2019, a book detailing artists’ prompts from Elastic City walks along with a guide to create your own participatory walks will be released this summer.

Elastic City is directed by Todd Shalom. He realized the idea while suffering from altitude sickness in Cusco, Peru.

For a complete list of organizational partners and those who have commissioned walks, please click here.

Click here to learn more about who works with the organization; here to read what people think about their experience, here to view an archive of all events, and here to see photos galore.

Finally, please see our FAQ for some practical Q&A.