PL

AY

Who made this?

This activity deck was created for
the CEOs for Cities 2013 Fall
National Meeting Art of the
Collaborative City by Big Car
Collective, an Indianapolis-based
nonprofit arts organization. Big
Cars work is about encouraging
creativity, social interaction, and
boosting the quality of life for all.
Cards not otherwise credited were
created by Jim Walker with creative
direction and design by Andy Fry.
Learn more at www.bigcar.org.
Please post documentation of
your activities on Twitter to
@CEOsForCities and @BigCar
with the hashtag #PlayDeck.

E xq u i s i t e C o r p s e
For three or more players.
Each player receives a sheet of paper
and folds it into sections equal
in number to those playing, and
usually with the lines horizontal to
the proposed picture. The sheets
are smoothed out and each player
draws whatever will be the top
section, allowing lines to cross the
crease slightly. The sheet is then
refolded, hiding the drawing, except
for the lines that crossed the crease.
The next player begins the second
part of the drawing at these lines,
creates new ones over the second
set of creases, folds the paper again
and hands it to the next player.
This process continues until the
last section is completed and the
collaborative drawing is revealed.
1924 from Surrealist games

Question and
a n s we r
For two or more players
A question is written down, the
paper folded to conceal it from the
next player, who writes an answer
on the same paper. The paper
is unfolded to reveal the result.
Remarkable facts emerge.
1928 from Surrealist games

C e r ta i n
Possibilities
Re l at i n g t o
t h e I r r at i o n a l
Embellishment of
a City
For any number of players. The
players ask whether they would
conserve, displace, modify,
transform, or suppress certain
aspects of a city.
1933 from Surrealist games

Whats Surrealism?
Surrealism was born in 1924 with
the release of French writer Andre
Bretons first Surrealist manifesto.
In it, he wrote: I believe in the
future resolution of two states,
dream and reality, into a kind of
absolute reality a surreality.
The organized Surrealist movement
brought together artists and
poets who embraced play, chance,
collaboration, surprise, and
unexpected juxtapositions in their
work. While surrealism is best
known for its visual artists like
Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte,
the poet Breton led the movement
until his death in 1966.

AS

Whats something you like about me?

Whats the story of something you

are wearing?

What bird would you be?

What would you invent?

Where do you like to sit?

AS

Whats an experience in a city that

surprised you?

What should every

neighborhood have?

How would your city change with

more people but fewer drivers?

What would happen if you didnt

own a car?

Whats a success youve enjoyed

thanks to collaboration?

Whats your favorite public place?

PL

AY

F l y P i ece
Fly.
Yoko Ono | Fluxus event score, 1963

Wa l k i n g E v e n t
On a busy city avenue, draw a
circle about 10 feet in diameter
with chalk on the sidewalk. Walk
around the circle as long as
possible without stopping.
Milan Knizak | Fluxus event score, 1965

S t r ee t P i ece
Make something in the street and
give it away.
Alison Knowles | Fluxus event score,
1962

S h a d o w P i ece
Make Shadows still or moving
of your body or something on the
road, wall, floor or anything else.
Catch the shadows by some means.
Mieko Shiomi | Fluxus event score,
1963

Lo o k
Look at an object in as many
different ways as possible.
Ben Vautier | Fluxus event score, 1964

D i r ec t i o n
Arrange to observe a sign
indicating direction of travel.
Travel in the indicated direction.
Travel in another direction.
George Brecht | Fluxus event score,
1961

Forest Event
Number 6
Walk out of your house. Walk to
the forest. Walk into the forest.

Forest Event
Number 7
When you walk into a forest, dont
forget to knock.
Bengt Af Klintberg | Fluxus event
scores, 1966

Walk all day long aimlessly through

the city. The best is alone.
Milan Knizak | Fluxus event score, 1966

# 1 85
Wind materials you find around
objects you find on a walk. Leave
them along your path.
Bob Lens | Fluxus event score, date unknown

Whats Fluxus?
Fluxus began as a very loose
allegiance of artists (or antiartists) who came to prominence
in the 1960s in New York City
and in Europe. Yoko Ono is the
most famous of the bunch. George
Maciunas was the father of Fluxus.
Influenced by people like musician
and theorist John Cage, Fluxus
artists created unconventional
performance scores that often
involved audience participation.
Today, Big Car Collective
encourages artists and non-artists
alike to perform Fluxus minievents as a way to connect with the
past, better know themselves, and
celebrate creativity.

What wouldnt you do?

1974 from Oblique Strategies by Brian
Eno and Peter Schmidt

Gardening, not architecture.

1974 from Oblique Strategies by Brian
Eno and Peter Schmidt

Make an exhaustive list of

everything you might do and do
the last thing on the list.
1974 from Oblique Strategies by Brian
Eno and Peter Schmidt

What are Oblique Strategies?

Experimental musician and
producer Brian Eno and painter
Peter Schmidt, both British,
collaborated in 1974 on a deck
of instruction cards to help them
with their creative processes.
Later, Eno printed the deck to
give away as a gift, and then
responding to popular demand
to sell to the general public.

Make a Poster of
S h a d ows
You may take pictures of the
shadows or simply trace them. These
solid shapes should then be drawn
on paper and colored in with a
single color. You are not interested
in anything but the shadow itself,
and you are most interested in
shadows that dont look anything
like the objects that created them;
abstract shapes.
2007, Learning to Love You More by Harrell
Fletcher and Miranda July

Make a flier of
y o u r d ay
Write a paragraph describing a
typical day in your life. Make one
hundred photocopied fliers of
the description (you dont have to
include your name) and post them
all over your neighborhood.
2007, Learning to Love You More by Harrell
Fletcher and Miranda July

Ta k e a fa m i l y
p o rt r a i t o f t wo
fa m i l i e s
Go to a park, beach or other public
place and locate two separate
families who are having a picnic or
barbeque. Ask the two families to
join together so that you can take a
group picture of them. Try to find
two families who dont know each
other and who look different from
each other.
2007, Learning to Love You More by Harrell
Fletcher and Miranda July

G r o w a ga r d e n i n
a n u n e x p ec t e d s p o t
Find an unexpected public place
where you can plant seeds and water
over a period of time. Possible
locations could be a vacant lot, a
median strip, a public park, etc.
2007, Learning to Love You More by Harrell
Fletcher and Miranda July

Make an
e n c o u r ag i n g
banner
Think of something encouraging
you often tell yourself. For example:
Everything will be ok. Or: Dont listen to
them. Or: Itll blow over. Now make a
banner, making sure to follow these
instructions:
1. Draw each letter of the sentence on a large piece of
colored construction paper or big squares of fabric.
One letter per piece. Draw them blocky so you can
cut them out.
2. Cut them out.
3. Glue each one onto a piece of construction paper
or fabric that is a contrasting color.
4. Then glue the edges of all the pieces of paper or
fabric together to make a banner.
5. Hang the banner in a place where you or someone
else might need some encouragement, for example,
across your bathroom. Or between two trees so that
you and your neighbors can receive encouragement
from it. Or in a gas station.

2007, Learning to Love You More by Harrell

Fletcher and Miranda July

G i v e a d v i ce t o
yo u r s e l f i n
t h e pa s t
Choose a particular age you have
been, perhaps a time when you were
particularly lost. Write out a list of
practical advice to yourself at that
age. Sure everything turned out
OK, but maybe you should have quit
that job five years earlier, maybe
you should have had children when
you were 27, maybe you should have
flossed, maybe you should have gone
to the alternative high school, or not
said that thing to your best friend.
Tell yourself what to do in clear,
specific language. Do not write an
essay, make it in list form.
2007, Learning to Love You More by Harrell
Fletcher and Miranda July

Whats Learning to Love

You More?
Learning to Love You More was a crowdsourced art project by Harrell
Fletcher and Miranda July that
offered assignments for the
general public. Between 2002 and
2009, more than 8,000 people
followed assignments and posted
documentation of their responses
at www.learningtoloveyoumore.
com. A book of this documentation
by Fletcher, now a Portland,
Oregon-based social practice artist
and professor, and July, a New
York-based performance artist and
filmmaker, is available from Prestel.

Look for living creatures in the

city birds, bugs, etc. Write a
brief description of what you see.
Try to find a creature youve never
noticed before.

Ask someone you dont know

for advice.

Walk toward the water.

After John Cage

Sit somewhere in the city for 4
minutes and 33 seconds and do
nothing but listen.

Find discarded photocopies at a

copier in your office, school or
neighborhood copy center. Using
tape, hang a small exhibit of your
favorite discoveries on a nearby wall.

Choose cards from this deck

and leave them for others
without explanation.

Write your own brief instruction on

a blank card included in this deck
and give it to a person.

On a walk, find seven yellow places.

Take pictures of each. Then buy
or find a yellow gift and give it to
someone. Next time, do this with a
different color.

TH

IN

The global urban population is

growing by 65 million annually,
equivalent to adding seven Chicagos
a year.
McKinsey Global Institute Report,
Urban World: Mapping the Economic Power of Cities

The greatest asset that a city or a city

neighborhood can have is something
thats different from every other place
Jane Jacobs (2006)

Chase the vision, not the money. The

money will end up following you.
Tony Hsieh | CEO, Zappos

243 million Americans live in the

3% of our nation that is urban.
Ed Glaeser, Harvard Professor, Triumph of
the City

Collaborative communities
transcend the boundaries of
time and spacethe new age of
networked intelligence renders
conventional approaches to value
creation insufficient...organizations
that make their boundaries porous
to external ideas and human capital
outperform those that rely solely on
internal resources and capabilities.
Don Tapscott and Anthony Brown,
Macrowikinomics

Tear down walls,

build bridges,
and light fires.
Steve Jobs

Reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT)

per person by one mile per day in
each of the 51 largest metro areas
would produce an aggregate annual
household savings of $31 billion.
CEOs for Cities, The Green Dividend Report

I didnt run for mayor to be the

caretaker of the status quo.
The Honorable Michael Nutter | Mayor,
City of Philadelphia

58% of a citys success is related to

college attainment.
CEOs for Cities Research

When I arrived, I felt we were trying

to fit family programs into our theaters
whenever there was time.
My feeling was that we shouldnt have
to fit them into other theaters. They
should have a theater of their own.
Michael Kaiser | President, John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Placemaking requires a
marathon mindset.
Jessica Goldman Srebnick | CEO,
Goldman Properties

If everyone lived as dense as they do in

Manhattan, the human race could fit
in New Zealand.
waitbutwhy.com

In the United States, metropolitan

areas contain 84 percent of the
population and generate 91 percent
of GDP.
Bruce Katz | Vice President, Brookings
Institution

Whatever youre thinking,

think bigger.
Tony Hsieh | CEO, Zappos