Tapping the Turk

I have $200.00 burning a hole in my pocket. Once it occurred to me that I could get 10,000 people to do something as inane as draw a sheep for me for the low, low price of .02 cents per sheep, my week has not been the same. It just seems like too much fun. But what will it be?

·         Draw something that starts with the letter A, the letter B, the letter C….through to Z times 200.

·         Send a picture of what is under the cushions of your couch.

·         Read a sonnet and send the recording as a wav file.

·         A penny for your thoughts times 20,000.

·         Draw the man in the moon

·         Tell me where to take my next vacation

Why does this appeal to me? I really don’t know but it seems to be a collective piece of art. It is a gestalt exercise. A collection of similar acts by many different people fires my imagination. This is one of the things that I love more than anything else about the internet, its generative nature. In its randomness, from its serendipitous goofiness, comes remarkable creativity. In it I can see reflections of the human spirit. This for me is like the ability to create my own little flash mob experience for a few dollars.  The Amazon Mechanical Turk will have me scheming for some days to come. Once I strike upon the ideal bit of fun, I’ll share it here. Of course, I’ll give you a chance to earn your own two cents.