The beauty of art is that it can show up where you least expect it and turn a passing moment into a lasting impression.

A group of Central Illinois artists did just that twice Friday night at Decatur Celebration, and they'll do it again today.

Inspired by the creative folks at Urban Prankster - urbanprankster.com, the group behind the Grand Central Station "people freeze," a YouTube phenomenon - close to 50 people "froze" for three minutes prior to shows Friday at Celebration. Organized locally by Decatur Celebration festival coordinator Ayn Owens and Nancy Sullivan, president of Theatre 7, Decatur's community theater, they called the presentation "Living Statues" or "Living Art."

Given a stage signal, all the participants froze and held their position, whatever they were doing. One girl's mouth was just short of a straw in her drink. Another stopped mid-hair twirl. One couple froze, looking off into the distance, the wife's finger pointing at something.

A man stopped just short of sneezing. Another squatted, tying a shoe. (Although he later admitted he "cheated" by going into a sit. Hey, major league catchers don't hold a squat for three uninterrupted minutes.) A twosome tossing a Frisbee stopped after one threw and the other was reaching.

That one was eerie, if you were paying attention.

Andrew Curry, one of the participants, said he wasn't worried about scaring anyone. "I'm more concerned that people won't notice," he said.

Some didn't, but others did, even during the first "show," a freeze at the Central Park Stage prior to the first show by Roger Kimball and the Funky Music Department. The participants were spread out, but one man noticed enough to wave his hands in front of the face of one and put a beer cup to the lips of another, to no noticeable affect.

Sullivan said one man was taking a picture, but stopped when she and other participants around her froze.

Sullivan said, "He said, 'Look, they're just standing there.' Then he took our picture."

Urban Prankster says it "covers pranks, hacks, participatory art, flash mobs and other creative endeavors that take place in public places in cities across the world." Other recent Web sensations have included people riding subways without pants (not bottomless, but pantsless and skirtless), placing twins on either sides of subways and having them strike identical poses and a New York City bubble battle.

Some folks might think these kinds of stunts are dangerous, potentially frightening people for no reason. The way most of the participants in all of them think, however, is either they're doing something extremely cool - a story to participate in now and tell about later - or they're doing something to wake observers out of a stupor.

Either of those fits the definition of something an artist is supposed to do.

Peaceful, organized disruptions, of course, are nothing new. Every person reading this probably participated in some kind of prearranged annoyance while in high school. That, after all, fits the definition of what a high school student is supposed to do.

In junior high, a teacher - a TEACHER - gave me a book detailing organized disruptions. One suggestion was students standing and singing the national anthem. ("No teacher," the book claimed, "would dare interrupt or punish students for singing the national anthem.")

As members of my class stood and began singing, a different teacher stood silently and listened as singers dropped off one by one. She'd read the book, too, apparently.

The "Living Statues" group performs again today at a location it would unfair to give away. But we'll just suggest that if you want to see it, find a place with a lot of bricks and a stage that features an act that will be marching in this morning's parade.

A lot of art will be produced at Decatur Celebration this weekend. Some of it comes from the stages. Other art is available for purchase at booths. Some of the artists allow you to watch them create the work before they sell it to you.

Yet others, like the "Living Statues" group, perform their art for the love and experience, the chance to show off and have a story to tell later.

Those are all great reasons for Decatur Celebration to exist.

Those, and river chips.

Tim Cain can be reached at timcain@herald-review.com or 421-6908.