SWARM: Flash mobs, mobile clubbing and the city

Abstract

This paper uses the example of the flash mob, and more specifically mobile clubbing, to discuss the potential of alternative, unmanaged processes of organising, enabled by the specific milieu of the city. As such, it places cities – as spaces of concentrated human living and working – firmly at the heart of theorising about organisation as a complex everyday social process, which extends beyond the confines of the more usual unit of analysis – that of commercial or even ‘not‐for‐profit’ activity. Flash mobs are groups of people who congregate in public spaces to carry out incongruous acts and dissipate after a given (usually very brief) period as quickly as they came. They are organised through viral means such as email, text message and word of mouth and take place in (take over?) busy city locations. We are interested in one specific type of act – mobile clubbing – whereby flash mobbers assemble as noted above and dance to music on their own individual iPods/MP3 players – each person (literally) dancing to a different beat but all together, sometimes thousands at a time. Although flash mobbers just have fun and probably do not think much of their means of organising themselves, we think there are several interesting aspects here that are worth reflecting upon, specifically their character as self‐organising unmanaged organisational forms and embodiment of an alternative vision of ‘community’ in urban life. We conclude the paper by considering the political potentiality of such forms of organising within the ‘generative context’ of the city.

Keywords:

• city
• community
• flash mobs
• multitude
• organising
• space
• urban planning

Notes

1. Interestingly, even when planned public places – such as plazas and squares – are well used by people, as Whyte notes, their representations, for example, in architects’ photographs, remain ‘empty of life’ and are taken ‘from a perspective few people share’ (1980/2007, 228) symbolising the planners’/architects over‐riding concern with the design – rather than the use – of the space.

2. de Certeau’s ideas have recently been extended and challenged by Thrift (2004), who argues that it is driving, and not walking, that is a primary producer of urban space in contemporary cities, something taken up in protest by groups such as ‘Reclaim the Streets’ in the UK (http://rts.gn.apc.org/).

3. We should not forget that the fact that flash mobs often take part during rush hours and in congested public places which means that they may be infuriating and disruptive for passers‐by, who get caught up in them. However, this capacity to frustrate, irritate, annoy and infuriate is precisely why we suggest they may hold political power as we discuss further.

4. The RAND corporation is a purportedly objective body providing research and development services to the US military (see http://www.rand.org).

5. See also the collaborative writing experiment by Leadbeater (2008).