Universal name for "IE style event"

[Agent Todd]

Hey everybody. I think it might be helpful to come up with a term that means "an improv everywhere style event." We use "mission" on our site of course, but this would be a more universal term that would stand for what we do. "Prank" is not right. "Flash Mob" is definitely not right.

A guy from Kansas City put up a Wikipedia entry last year defining what we do as Guerrilla Improv: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_improv

It's an ok term, but I don't think it's right either. Honestly I would want a term that doesn't have the word "improv" in it, because I am so sick of reading internet comments on blogs that cover our missions crying, "this is not improv! it's planned!"

So what term can we coin that means, "a prank that somehow alters reality in a public space that is not mean-spirited."

Thoughts?

[Agent J.A. Riley]

Rereading through the comments led me to: Urban Bemusements. "to bewilder or confuse" someone. Bemusement then becomes the noun. Urban, since cities are where these are most effective. They are a social phenomenon. Likewise, Social Bemusements. But that could as easily be laughing at people being foolish at parties. Bemuse also implies a playfulness that some of its synonyms lack. That fits the spirit of these antics well.

Bemuse is better than befuddle, baffle or confuse. But then bedazzlement has a lot of layers of meaning in it that fit. But it better be impressive to really bedazzle. Also enchant - to attract and move deeply : rouse to ecstatic admiration. But then too, enchantment has too many connections to Charmed & Buffy the Vampire Slayer and to that Hypnotist in England (or wherever) who was recently "hip-mo-tizin'" clerks at convenience stores for all their cash. But... I digress.

"Another round of Urban Bemusements hit this afternoon as numerous groups in several cities staged simultaneous acts of silliness involving..."

[Bishop]

A term that means, "a prank that somehow alters reality in a public space that is not mean-spirited."

phenomenology
noun
the science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being.
• an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.

Wikipedia states:[Phenomenological reality] "On a much broader and more subjective level, the private experiences, curiosity, inquiry, and selectivity involved in the personal interpretation of an event shapes reality as seen by one and only one individual and hence is called phenomenological."

I know that 'phenomenological' is a bit of a mouthful, but I thought that the word has significant meaning.
For example, The Moebius, and Food Court Musical where planned events (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), yet spectators loved the missions. For a moment in time, each onlooker had a different interpretation of the event. Curious onlookers stopped to see what was going on, trying decipher if what they where seeing was 'actual' reality. The musical and The Moebius helped shaped what some thought was reality for a moment, to a IE twilight zone.

[Agent Firebird]

Well, I think a HUGE aspect of doing what we do involves Cognitive Dissonance. It's pretty much what Improv Everywhere causes.

So maybe... CogDis? Like, we have a CogDis planned.

[Agent Todd]

I like "urban" and "absurd"

Absurban

Urban Absurd

Urban Absurdity

[Agent Wang]

Oh My Goodness, these sound great! I love them all master todd! :)!

[Cal]

Absurban, definately.

[Agent Todd]

a couple more:

Guerilla mission

Undercover comedy

[Agent Wang]

Wonderful, I love these too! :)!

[Cal]

These appealed to me:
theality
deviant (or deviation)
Improveratti (if "improv" is a problem, it could be "impoveratti")
reality ___ (since "reality hacking" is out, how about "reality check," "reality boot," "reality press..." etc.)

[Agent Droid]

I like "Reality Check."

[Toshio Saeki]

I just made a portmanteau of the two words acting and guerrilla. I came up with the word actrilla, but it sounds like some brand of detergent soap. But hey, why can't I come up with my words? Lewis Carroll did a lot of these. Another one drifting in my head is a word that fuses Sir Todd's words urban and prank to create purbank. I don't know, but that word is actually the [forced?] union of the two words.

The best portmanteau I have invented so far is extemporaction, an extemporaneous action. Pretty obvious, but the negative side of me tells me that I have just created a name for a dinosaur species.

Come on now folks, up with those ideas. :D

[Bishop]

You're a funny dude, T. HA!