Please take some time to watch this incredible piece of performance art. On Saturday, February 10, 2001, in Denton, Texas, a group of friends held a garage sale where all of the (absurd) prices were determined by “The Price Master“, a mysterious masked figure on a tiny stage.
This review on Letterboxd describe this little gem really well (via BroBible):
Very surreal and very unnerving little piece of public access gold focused on a stoop sale as performance art in Denton, Texas, around 2001. My friend texted me the link and said “If you have five minutes, check this out,” and I ended up watching all 30 minutes of it. Shot on a handheld video camera, vérité style, it documents unsuspecting customers finding themselves at a stoop sale in which nothing is labeled with a price and a strange figure, the Pricemaster, dictates outrageous prices for everything when inquired. “Five… HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!”
I also appreciated the Marshall McLuhan‘s quotes at the beginning:
“Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible. The groundrules, pervasive structure, and over-all patterns of environments elude easy perception. Anti-environments, or counter situations made by artists, provide means of direct attention and enable us to see and understand more clearly.”
“Humor as a system of communications and as a probe of our environment–of what’s really going on–affords us our most appealing anti-environmental tool. It does not deal in theory, but in immediate experience, and is often the best guide to changing perceptions.”
[thanks Claudio for pointing me to this video]