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??Shia LaBeouf?? Locks Himself In Elevator In Oxford, England For Art Project — #ELEVATE

By Stephen Jordan
Published on: 05:53 PST, Feb 19, 2016

Actor ??Shia LaBeouf?? is pulling another public “art performance,” this time inside of an elevator. LaBeouf will be spending 24 hours inside of an elevator in Oxford, with breaks for the bathroom and one break to give a talk at Oxford Union. This event, which is being called #ELEVATE, is being streamed on YouTube, reports People.

“Visitors will be able to join LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner inside the elevator during this time, and are invited to address the artists, the debating chamber, and the internet, so that their collective voices may form an extended, expansive and egalitarian Oxford Union address,” according to the video description.

Shia LaBeouf has described the art project as an egalitarian soapbox for everyone to participate in.

Shia LaBeouf, 29, will be joined by friends Luke Turner, Nastja Rönkkö, and others who will visit the actor. One fan gave the actor a gift while standing with him inside of the elevator, others freely discussed the classes they were taking at the University, with others asking what education is like in America. Shia largely stayed quiet while everyone around him engaged in conversation, however, upon hearing that there is only a total of 25 black students at Oxford University, LaBeouf replied “f***ing disgraceful.” He also stated that he was surprised at the lack of cultural diversity at the university.

Shia LaBeouf stated that he was invited to Oxford by the president of the union after LaBeouf set up his own call center in Liverpool. At this call center, members of the public could call in to ask the actor questions.

“Stuart the president said: ‘Do you want to stand in the same spot as Malcolm X?'” LaBeouf said. “Who… am I to argue with that?”

“It’s about getting to know people, connecting to people,” Shia LaBeouf said. “Men who get lost, like explorers, end goal is they hope they find a new world, a new land. We’re hoping that we find a more sincere affect.”

Students inside of the elevator discussed the psychological nature of the art project: compressing a group of people into a small space and having them socially interact with one another. One student pointed out all of the poverty and mental illness she sees around Oxford University and how it is ignored.

Interestingly, it doesn’t seem as if LaBeouf is concerned with the award season right now. When asked if he wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to win the Oscar for his performance in The Revenant, he responded, “I really don’t give a s***.”

Shia doesn’t find it interesting when people come into the elevator with prepared questions. He went on to say that he is in the exact same position as everyone else in the elevator – he wants them to like him, they want him to like them.

Last year, Shia LaBeouf live-streamed himself sitting in a movie theater and watching every film he had ever been in — for 72 hours. That art project was called #AllMyMovies and was very much a social experiment like #ELEVATE.

Shia LaBeouf held an open invitation for anyone to come into the theater and join him, and the event garnered quite a big response on social media. At one point, the actor ordered pizza for everyone in the theater.

By the time Transformers: Dark of the Moon was showing, LaBeouf started to struggle and decided to take a nap in the aisle. Prior to this project, he worked with Rönkkö and Turner on #IAMPERFORMANCE, which was an art project that had LaBeouf sitting silently in a Los Angeles gallery with a paper bag over his head. Written on the paper bag were the words “I am not famous anymore.”

[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]

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