I managed to blag my way into the Spencer Tunick shoot at the Docklands this morning following rave reviews of the Cork event. Unfortunately the one person I knew was going pulled out shortly after getting me a release form. After taking to the mean streets of my phonebook and meeting a giant collective “Nuh-uh” I decided to go by myself, and I’m glad I did because cracking jokes with naked strangers on a wall jutting into the sea at five in the morning is about the most fun one can have with one’s clothes in a plastic bag several hundred yards away.
The actual stripping was not as weird as I expected. StereoTyping made it sound like a Village of the Damned kind of thing, like some kind of hive mind decision, but I guess that aspect of it was spoiled for me by the fact that I’d pushed up to within 20 feet of the guy with the megaphone. Maybe all the people at the back had a different time of it, I don’t know. It was a cool experience though - no nervousness whatsoever.
There followed a long walk to the end of the South Wall as everyone was asked to spread out. We were herded into staggered lines while the man himself nadged off in the other direction. There was a certain amount of waiting around here, although we were able to amuse ourselves by mooning the Stena Sealink and manically saluting the Irish Ferries boat (because English people are bad and Irish people are not, obviously).
After just long enough had passed for me to assume that he’d buggered off for a cuppa, there was muttering down the line about “Position A”. Position A consisted of everyone standing with their arms by their side and facing out to sea (well, there was sea on both sides of us so that’s not terribly specific… everyone facing in the same direction, is what you should be getting from this). At no point did I see any sort of camera so I don’t know if there was any good god damn reason to hold it for as long as we did, but any annoyance on this score was mitigated by the fact that Position B turned out to be A Nice Sit Down. This was shortly followed by everyone lying down in a foetal position, and… well, a piece of advice: if you ever find yourself in the nip on the South Wall at dawn on an overcast day, you might want to minimise the amount of skin you put in contact with the ground.
After the first shoot packed up there was a nice Schindler’s List-esque trudge back to the clothes, and of course I was one of the people who couldn’t find his… it’s amazing how standing around with a few hundred other naked people feels perfectly normal, but wandering lost among people who are tying their shoelaces and zipping up their hoodies just makes you feel like a crazy person. Fortunately my bag turned up in the hands of a lovely young gentlemen, who politely declined a hug.
We were told that another shoot would be kicking off in a while for anyone who wanted to stick around. Probably around two hundred people stayed, including yours truly, and after half an hour or so we all filed down to the beach, stripped off again and ran screaming into the sea. I should point out that it had started raining at this point, so the natural response was to start splashing each other, dancing reels and singing “Olé Olé”. Because we’re Irish and that’s how we fucking roll.
This last shoot was the highlight of the whole thing, hands down. The previous stuff had all been a lot of waiting around and pulling a pose and repeating, and it was cool but you weren’t necessarily that engaged. Whereas 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”. God bless you sir, you made my morning.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. After the rather horrific experience of scrambling into soaking wet, sand-covered clothes (while using a bathtowel as an umbrella… not as ineffective as you might think), and while we were shuffling back towards the buses, Spence and some dude started handing out leaflets. One of these was an invite to a post-installation dinner on Sunday. The other was an invitation to a Super Extra Bonus Shoot that’s taking place on balconies in the city centre tonight.
Can’t fucking wait.
‘Unfortunately the one person I knew was going pulled out shortly after getting me a release form.’
As that one person, I really should have gone. I’d probably feel so much better today. Glad it went well at least!
ah, well, you have a story for the grandkids, at least.
@David - you didn’t miss anything amazing. You may have missed pneumonia though!
@Colm - fair play for going back. As you allude to in your other post, the organisation was a factor for me. It’s unfortunate - what could have been a great experience turned out to be a poor one. Pity.
I didn’t really notice the organisation being dodgy on the first night, largely because I was too busy having the time of my life. The complaints people have raised about the speaker system and so on are fair enough, but for me the experience was amazing mostly because of the interaction I had with other people, and I can’t imagine how better organisation could have improved that. I guess when it came down to it the fact that photos were being taken was kind of irrelevant to my enjoyment of the thing.
Deffo the Beach Shoot was the best, The water fight was in danger of spilling over to a mad spontaneous all in!, i was near middle of it and so glad i stayed even though every instinct told me run for the bus home to a warm shower, once we stripped off again it was exhilarating. Those will be the Money Shots in my opinion.
The tickets he handed out, to couples for the next day. we Went to get one off him, the orange invites, he rejected me as being ‘too tall’ for his set up! grrr my girlfriend was not impressed.
Are you much taller than your girlfriend? The couples were hugging in the shoot so it’d make sense to look for people roughly the same height. Damn, the more I figure out what he was looking for the less special I feel…
I loved the first two shoots on the pier and in the water. But the best was the third shoot on the apartment balconies. No security, No shouting, more relaxed and comfortable and you got to have a chat with the 6 other naked people before barring all 8 floors up.