Dave Hoffer, a creative director at Frog Design, recently coined the term “Disruptive Realism” to describe much of what we post about on this blog. He introduces the term in the video above and then elaborates:

Disruptive Realism is an expression presented in an everyday context that disrupts peoples perceptions about different things. Expression can mean many things and it a way it’s art but it’s also much more expansive a term than just art.

Banksy’s graffiti looks real enough that you might do a double take looking at it. It draws you into the content which is disruptive…like a little girl flying a refrigerator kite in New Orleans.

The other two examples are even more non-conventional than the word Art implies. Most people hear the word art and they think of a painting in a museum. Because Bruno Taylor’s work is an experience that involves physical designs like the swing set in the bus stop, the viewer is no longer viewing, they’re interacting and the videos he takes of people enjoying the installations are, in fact, part of the art. So this example is difficult to define, but definitely real and definitely disruptive.

Improv Everywhere is one part performance art and one part massive, crowdsourced goof. People get together (often strangers) to collaborate on a kind of a joke on the unsuspecting and unknowing non-participants. In a way, it’s almost an anti-terrorism…Humorism? But again, very real and very disruptive.

The term made it’s way to Wikipedia, though the entry is in danger of being deleted it seems.