Urban Decoy
A game of catch and chase
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 - ASPHYXIA - 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.
“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 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.
“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 - ASPHYXIA - 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.
“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 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.
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