Bacon Number

Gallery: Gallery 1988
Exhibition: The Subtle Art of Pop Culture

Gallery1988 has been one of my biggest supporters over the years, and I couldn’t be happier to be on the roster for their 10 Year Anniversary Show, The Subtle Art of Pop Culture. For my contribution, I tried to think of something that would literally connect to all aspects of pop culture, and I was reminded of the popular parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. In case you’ve lived under a rock for the last twenty years, the point of the game is to pick an actor and connect them to Kevin Bacon in six moves or less, using movies they have appeared in with other actors. The amount of steps it takes is their “Bacon Number”.

What many people don’t realize is that the challenging part of this game isn’t connecting an actor in under six moves, it’s finding an actor that can only be done in OVER three moves. Everyone is so connected that most actors, living or dead, can be connected to Kevin Bacon in only one or two moves. In all my experiments, I could only find one person that took four full moves to get to and, HINT, he’s a former US President.

I even extended the game to non-human characters and could usually connect them to Kevin Bacon in only 2 moves (Kevin Bacon was in “Apollo 13″ with Tom Hanks, who was in “Castaway” with Wilson the Volleyball).
See if you can figure out everyone, and leave a comment if you do!

The Subtle Art of Pop-Culture:
Gallery1988′s 10 Year Anniversary Show
Opening Reception: Friday, April 11th, 7–10pm
(on display through April 26th, 2014)
Gallery1988 (West)
7308 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90046
@gallery1988 / gallery1988.com

You may also like