In September 2009, nearly two thousand participants walked their invisible dogs in Brooklyn as a part of a prank initiated by Improv Everywhere. The prank was organized around a joke product invisible dog leash, a stiff leash and collar surrounding the empty space where a dog would be. The participants were told to behave as if they were seriously walking a real dog while the reactions of fellow people where filmed. I use the visual material produced during the mission to dwell upon the normative element of life – at the very least of street life. One person walking with an invisible dog is unproblematically referred to as being “a nutcase” but as more walkers with empty leashes are at sight, different kind of categorization work is done. Participants are no longer solitary bodies but categorized as collective. During the mission, many bystanders thought they were witnessing an event promoting shelter dogs or protesting dog poop. This is akin to the results from ethnomethodological breaching experiments: people desperately try to make sense of even the most absurd action. I use the prank to question the ways in which the realm of “politics” becomes very a persuasive site for ordinary sense making when, in fact, the political potential of action is still open and under categorization. I ask how we notice “invisible” things; how members in their daily action make much out of nothing by acting “as if” the unnoticed things were there. The paper summarizes with methodological impulses for researchers into the artfulness of witnessing something extraordinary.
