Spencer Tunick in Dublin
By
And so, midsummers day dawned with the most typical of Irish weather. It didn’t make life easy for the 2,500 brave souls who volunteered to take part in Spencer Tunick’s art installation in Dublin. I’m sure it was an event to remember for all those who took part though. I briefly flirted with the idea myself, but decided to give it a miss – a decision I’ve no strong feelings about one way or t’other.
I’m sure there will be lots more blog posts about the event in the next while, but here are some of the early reactions and accounts.
Boards.ie has an active thread on the Dublin shoot. This page on the thread has some of the press photographs.
E.M. Esq. was one of the few who stayed around for the final shoot which was the highlight of the event for him. Proof that the It’s your money advertising campaign was money well spent.
This was the 200 most euphoric and up-for-it people in the gaff standing shin deep in the sea and having a party. Even when it got to the posing, it was mostly about who could shout something to make the most people laugh. My personal favourite was ten seconds of silence followed by a lonely-sounding “I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is”
Rosemary Mac Cabe has a very touching and thoughtful piece. In particular, these words were striking:
“And somehow now I find myself on the verge of tears; while glad that I partook, I wouldn’t do it again. The cold was unbearable, the ground was stony, the wait was difficult and my patience wanes easily. My tears are for the fact that I will most likely never again feel so free.”
I think this is a symptom of a world where we we have never been so connected to each other through technology, but have a feeling of being disconnected. My own personal way of dealing with this is take a walk along the beach and just listen to the waves.
Aidan K was a volunteer at the event and will have happy memories of the sight of 2,500 naked people cheering at the early morning ferries.
Any more accounts? Feel free to leave a comment with a link to yours.
Header image photo by Edanmo and adapted under a creative commons license
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12 Comments
June 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Cheers for the link, Monsieur le C. Interesting what you say about being disconnected – for me, the experience was similar to being at a music festival, in that everyone’s automatically your best friend for the duration. Just an amazing sense of camaraderie, and I’d jump at the opportunity to do it again.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Nice post, and I’d agree with emordino’s comment. Here’s my account of the Dublin installation: http://url.ie/gs9
Cheers,
Debbie
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:52 am
Great account Debbie, thanks for posting the url
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I waffled for hours – nearly as long as the shoot was.
How about:
# It was cold
# I was freezing
# Spencer didn’t seem bothered
# Being in the sea was torture
# Women in Ireland have MANY different shapes
and
# It’s stupid to be embarrassed about finding your fly open after an age of sitting with other people around you in the nude
http://darraghdoyle.blogspot.com/2008/06/spencer-cork-seems-to-have-been-better.html
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
HI, its great to read all of the accounts of the South Wall installation. I didn’t wait for the nudes in the water shots which for some reason seem to be the only ones published (i would have thought the 2500+ would be far more impressive-looking on the pier but maybe the media only get the less arty ones…?)
Anyway i loved Debbie’s account and found it incredibly accurate – she was probably near me as i too got frustrated with drunken yobbos acting like they were at a giant stag party. Such a shame the stewards hadn’t screened people a little better.
Thanks Debbie – i’m not so blog-savvy so not sure how best to respond directly. A truly great account though. And i must salute all those who were brave/crazy enough to weather it for the last set-up in the freezing waters. Well done!!
(Yeah Vienna certainly sounds tempting!
Clarissa
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Hi Darragh, sorry your comment was in the moderation queue all afternoon and I had no net access.
Thanks for the comment Clarissa, sounds like it was a morning to remember.
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:55 pm
[...] was immediately impressed. I used it to create this weeks le craic header. Having read all the Spencer Tunick posts I thought it would be interesting to take the words from the various accounts of the [...]
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I heard that more than 150 people were there yestderday as well for a second shot.
Amazing to find so many people ready to get naked in the name of art …
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Thank you for your kind comments here Clarissa. I replied to you on mine as well.
I lurve the Spencer Tunick word cloud, lecraic! Fab stuff, though I can think of a few other words that are noticeable by their absence… s’pose you ought to keep it clean though.
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:22 pm
And thanks, lecraic, for your comment too. It’s amazing that over 800 people have now read my account (or at least looked at the pictures!) – my usual is around six, and my previous personal best was 28!!! Yikes.
)
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Glad you like the word cloud Debbie. It’s been a heavy traffic day for the spencer post here too. It might just topple the Jessie Buckley post by tomorrow
June 29th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Hello! Well done to everyone who turned up! It was an amazing experience! There was no sense of class, status, race or even gender (if you can believe that)…we were just people…free people…being nice to one another for a change. Thank you for the experience, Spencer…please come back soon! And if anyone would seriously travel to one of Spencer’s next installations, I’d definitely be interested in going too!