GETTING NAKED IN PUBLIC
And so it came that on a cold, spring morning in June, Cath and Alan would find themselves naked in front of Blarney Castle with over 1000 other people from around the world.
How did this come about you may ask. Well, we saw an advert.
Spencer Tunick is an internationally famous artist who gets people to strip off for him around the world (dodgy bugger). A few of his pics are below - in Newcastle, England; Melbourne, Australia and I think the other one is in Amsterdam. Do a google images search and you'll find tons of his stuff.
Anyhoo... I saw this advert askeing 'Are you brave enough?' or whatever, and thought 'Hell yes!'
At that stage,I didn't know that it would entail getting up at 2.30 in the morning and waiting around from 3-5am to get started.
Anyway, we took a taxi from the city centre and arrived to be greeted by Father Ted 9an Irish TV series) fake protestors. They eventually came through themselves and took part I think.
It was pretty chilly at 3am in the morn and we sat around chatting in one big massive group, waiting for the go-ahead. One nutcase was obviously very keen to get naked cos he took his kit off pretty early (the only one) and then sat for about 2 hours no-doubt freezing his little lad off.
As we walked in, we were all given plastic bags to put our clothes in while we were off posing.
We didn't think too much about where we placed ours but when we came back we were lucky enough to find ours pretty much straight away. One poor sod was left walking around for about 20 minutes - with everyone else now fully dressed again! Shame.
At any rate we were all sitting around when suddenly, word came that the photographer and his team were in position and it was time to get naked!
All hell broke loose.
Suddenly everyone was frantically stripping - aparently thinking that being clothed is fine, being naked is fine, but being seen changing is not. And just like that we were all walking off - a mass of tums and (large) bums - making their way through the trees.
Once we got into a clearing, Spencer (we're on first name terms now) was up on top of a big crane, telling us where to stand via a megaphone and getting his team of volunteers to position us.
And so first we had a few pics with the castle in the background. The grass was freezing though and we were all left to thank our lucky stars that it wasn't raining. Spencer did another nude photo in Dublin 5 days later and it absolutely pissed down! Haha - Dubs!
So after a few like that, he asked us to bend over forwards to create a pave-stone type effect with our backs (as seen from above). This was a bit weird to be honest. I had Cath's (tiny) ass inches from my head (which was down) and an absolute stranger's head inches behind my crack - never have the words 'don't look up' been more appropriate. Every now n again I would feel her hair touch my bum.
After that, we clapped at how wonderful we were and headed off to the second 'installation' - which involved the guys holding white roses and the girls red ones.
Spencer came down for a few last-minute instructions, no-doubt checking out the talent.
All in all it was pretty good fun (or ironically, craic as the Irish say).
Why did we do it? Y'know, some people say they wanted to create art, some have other reasons. Me, well... I suppose because I can. (That's Emma's saying I think) - but ja, I think because it's cool to try different stuff and what better time (in this case) than when you're overseas where virtually no-one knows you! We get a free print of the photo for our work and one day we'll be able to look back and say 'We did that'.
As re the whole nakedness thing, we all got over it pretty quickly I'd say. No-one could really check anyone out cos we were all facing the same way so if anything, all we got to check out was a whole bunch of asses! On that note I can oddly say I noticed that guys have way better asses than women! Don't quote me on that though!
There was a real mix of people - old, young, couples, tatooed, etc.
The article as it appeared in the Irish Examiner newspaper appears below:
Spencer Tunick
Article which appeared in the Irish Examiner:
By Marc O'Sullivan
OVER 1,100 people yesterday bared all in a frozen June dawn to take part in a nude installation by American artist Spencer Tunick at Blarney Castle.
The installation called for volunteers to be photographed naked at several locations on the Blarney Castle estate over a period of several hours. Participants arrived at 3am and the shoot began at around 5am. It concluded around 9am with Tunick photographing the last 50 volunteers kissing the Blarney Stone while naked.
"Most people came from Cork or the Munster area," Cork Midsummer Festival director William Galinsky said, "though some came from further afield.
"Usually, when Spencer does an installation in a particular city, about one in a thousand people sign up for it; in Cork, it was more like one in a hundred.
"Spencer was really pleased with how smoothly everything went," said Galinsky.
"We were blessed with the weather, and the atmosphere among the participants was great. We were really privileged that Charles Colthust and the Blarney Estate were so supportive; they really went the extra mile in helping us with everything."
The first shoot involved all the participants standing on the lawns within view of Blarney Castle; first they faced away from it towards the camera, then they turned around and faced the other way. They also turned and bent over so the photographer could photograph their backs."
The second shoot involved the volunteers holding roses aloft as Tunick photographed them, again within view of the castle, though at a different location. The men held white roses, the women red. First they were photographed standing, then on their backs in the grass.
The third shoot involved the artist photographing 400 women in the rockery by the castle. For the fourth set-up, he persuaded 100 male volunteers to stand in a river with coins spread on the upturned palms of their hands. Then he had them sit in the water up to their haunches.
For the final set-up, the artist had 50 volunteers posed naked on the top of Blarney Castle to kiss the famous stone in the al-together, something that even past famous stone kissers like Winston Churchill never managed.
"It was freezing," said one bare-butt kisser, a 22-year-old student at University College Cork. She and her three fellow students decided this was a chance not to be missed.
"We wanted to go down in history as the only naked kissers of the Blarney Stone. We had to lie down naked, lean back and kiss the cold stone. I was freezing from top to bottom."
She added cheekily: "With the gift of the gab, that means we will be talking out of our backsides from now on."
Cork Midsummer Festival said it was the biggest participatory artwork Ireland has ever seen.
