Urban Decoy 31 May 2004
Bull
Ring Shopping Centre, Birmingham UK
My Dads Strip Club worked with Chris
Graham to organise a game for 20-30 people to play called URBAN
DECOY (a kind of catch and chase game). This game involved interaction
with a brand of make-up called ‘Urban Decay’ sold by the
High St chain store Boots.
The make- up is shockingly overpriced with themes of war and deprivation…..For example they have slogans selling nail polish saying “turn your fingers into ten beautiful little soldiers” . Lipstick is sold with the slogan “make your mouth into a lethal weapon”. Eye shadow called names such as;
GO ARMY – OILSLICK – PLUTONIUM – STRIP - ASPHIXIA
ACID RAIN - STRAY DOG - SPARE CHANGE -KIDDY POOL
Ten people played the game and the other fifteen or so were catchers.
We briefed the players on their task, firstly they had to find the secret
agent, a woman wearing an orange scarf in Waterstone’s bookstore
café putting on lipstick.She gave out small printed secret mission
sheets which were printed on the back of army targets.
FOR YOUR EYES LIPS AND SKIN ONLY
“Go deep inside enemy territories and using counter
–surveillance techniques to blend with civilian consumers and
locate the Urban Decay make-up stand in Boots. Once inside deplete the
make-up testers ( by camouflaging your face) then avoiding capture (
by in-store security and the team of catchers on the street) get back
to base for debriefing & exercise completion”
So they went into the store all together and put on all the make-up
they could camouflaging their faces and then ran back to ‘base’
down the central shopping area with a team of people trying to catch
them.
Most got caught. Their hands were cable-tied behind their backs. Then they were bagged and tagged by Richard Dedomenici,our fake soldier.
Bags designed by Chris Graham went over their heads and our soldier had a tagging gun and tagged each detainee with a tiny toy soldier trapped in a small bag with oil…
The soldier then
had photos of himself pointing at the detainees ( similar to the pictures
released in the press of US soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners)
Of course this was visually interesting for shoppers and got a lot of
attention from passers-by and security watching on CCTV. More people
wanted to stop shopping and play the game so we played with a new team
it was great to have macho teenage lads joining in covering their faces
with lipstick.
To request a hi-res version for screening contact birmingham@indymedia.org