Monocle

The ancient Jewish leader Hillel once famously asked: “If not now, when?” More than 2,000 years later, a group of five young Israeli college students is embracing this maxim to help give a new – and decidedly risqué – public face to their nation. Their medium is social media – Facebook, Twitter, URLs – and their message (if not mission) is to use Web 2.0 to help lure controversial American artist Spencer Tunick to their conflict-ridden country. 



Tunick, of course, is best-known for his massive photographic creations featuring dozens, hundreds and often thousands of naked folks in unusual and everyday settings – from a Swiss glacier to Mexico City’s historic Zócalo. Straddling both the sacred and the profane (often literally), Tunick’s images challenge conventional concepts of the body as well as the body politic. 



Tunick’s Israeli media moment began last autumn in a classroom at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC), where a group of third-year communications students seized upon the artist as an ideal vehicle for renovating Israel’s sorry global image. “Spencer represents liberalism, beauty and creativity,” says IDC student Sharon Gitelman, “sides of Israel you don’t usually see on the evening news.” 



Working with IDC professors, Gitelman’s group began a web campaign to both educate Israel about Tunick – and hopefully Tunick about Israel. They launched a website – undressingisrael.com – loaded with information on potential Tunick shoot locations and a history of his work. There’s a Facebook group and Twitter account with hundreds of local followers. They also organised a roster of Tunick introduction events to help raise public awareness of the artist, his work and his potential to help rebrand Israel. 



It’s a ground-up effort whose effectiveness can far exceed conventional nation-branding campaigns, says IDC lecturer David Saranga, who helped pioneer the melding of social networking and diplomacy as Consul for Public Affairs at Israel’s consulate in New York. “People perceive government media messages as biased,” he explains. “But coming from students, the [Tunick scheme] has an inherent sense of integrity and authenticity.”



Back in the US, Tunick himself has had nothing to do with the IDC student project – merely serving as a silent protagonist for their if-you-blog-it-he-will-come media effort. But that all changed last week when rumblings of an actual Tunick visit and mass-nudie shoots in Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea made their way from the media to the Parliament floor. The response was, unsurprisingly, mixed. Echoing Gitelman’s group, Israeli Tourism Ministry officials declared their support for a Tunick visit as a vehicle “to position Israel as an attractive, modern, singular, safe, and lively destination, just like any other country,” said deputy industry, trade, and labour minister Orit Noked. 



At the opposite extreme, conservative parliamentarian Nissim Ze’ev called Tunick’s possible arrival “crazy”, while his colleague Uri Urbach tartly noted: “I understand that one of the shoots is supposed to take place in the Dead Sea. This is the lowest place on earth, and after this it may sink even lower.”



So far, Tunick has yet to confirm he’s actually coming to the Holy Land. But if he does show up, it won’t be the first time Israelis have used social media to lure foreign pop icons. Back in 2007, frustrated suburban Tel Aviv fashion fan Sandy Livak-Furmanski launched a Facebook campaign to bring Swedish retailer H&M to Israel. Nearly three years and 11,000 Facebook friends later, H&M debuted nine Israeli outlets this month, and personally thanked Livak-Furmanski for her efforts.



While it’s too soon to tell if Tunick will one day offer similar accolades, Gitelman remains focused on building buzz while expanding her group’s presence both online and off. Last week’s “Bring Spencer to Israel” party will now become a monthly affair, and Gitelman is working with Israeli media to help tout Tunick’s virtues in light of all of the political nay-saying.

“Usually there’s a formal PR effort before Spencer comes for a shoot,” Gitelman says. “But we’ve made this our cause; after all, if Spencer shows up and no one is willing to get naked, well then I really won’t have done my job.”

David Kaufman is a Monocle contributor based in Tel Aviv