The Moebius
There’s this improv group in New York called Improv Everywhere that “causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.” On one particular “mission” they
created a living moebius strip in the Astor Place Starbucks. Seven undercover agents meticulously repeated a five-minute slice of time for twelve consecutive repetitions. Starbucks employees and patrons were frightened, confused, and ultimately entertained as they found themselves stuck, without escape, in the middle of a time loop.”
They staged a five minute “play” with several seemingly unconnected people. A couple standing in line has an argument and she walks out, another “agent” receives a cell phone call and goes to the window for better reception and so on. They repeated this verbatim for an hour and then just left.
What’s interesting about this is that the non-agent customers began seeing the pattern and anticipating the next installment with glee. Which brings up the question of our temporal capacity to find interest in repetition. In other words, what if they had done this for two hours or five or twenty four? What if this happened in every Starbucks every day? Then the meaning would change, people would not be so pleased and they would tire of the pattern.
So what part does time play in our perception of repetition? How many repetitions are too many – or not enough? Do they have to be exactly the same and if not how much deviation still “works?”
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