Jon Burgerman - Head Shots

This isn't traditional ad takeover work, but I think its my favorite thing about 2014 thus far! Jon Burgerman is is an illustrator, musician, performer and just generally amazing in his yellow jacket uniform. Head Shots, is a series of photographs he is currently working on that takes advantage of the numerous opportunities to get blasted by outdoor advertising violence. While it's critical of the amount of visual violence we ingest, it's also just hilarious and playful. I can be a bit heavy handed with my own work and seeing such a light and nimble approach to ad criticism is inspiring. See more of Jon's work [HERE] and more Head Shots [HERE]

New Murals Advertise Products, Despite Passing of Ordinance

Dennis Hathaway just brought a KCET news story to my attention that shows advertising working its way into Los Angeles art murals only months after the mural ordinance went into effect. He writes, "I told a lot of people during the process of passing this new mural ordinance that marketers would try to find a way to use it for commercial purposes, and now I have the highly unsatisfying opportunity to say, "I told you so."

VIA: KCET

The difference between fine art and advertising is already being stepped on. Only a few months after the passing of an ordinance designed to get murals out under commercial signage, some new works are branding product. More [HERE]

Happy New Poster From OX

The always inspired OX sends us a Happy New Year Poster. Enjoy more of his work [HERE]

Unknown Artist Ad Takeover in Philadelphia PA

Damon Abnormal sent me these images of an unknown artist's ad takeovers that he came across in Philadelphia. If anyone knows who is doing this work, please let us know. You can see more of Damon's Tumblr, [HERE]

Vermibus - Dissolving Europe

Vermibus "Dissolving Europe" from Vermibus on Vimeo. 

Vermibus is a Berlin based artist who removes advertising, alters it with a thinner, and then replaces those ads on the street to a ghostly affect. Somewhere between ad criticism and plain ad takeover work, his imagery rides a thin line and speaks to both. I cannot be happier to see Vermibus taking this medium to new heights by touring so heavily and being so damn productive. I think you will see a lot more of this artist in the coming years.

It is interesting to see a real sub genre of artists using outdoor advertising venues as their main medium. While these artists do have definitive styles of working, the outdoor ad venue is a vital component in their process. Artists like OX, Posterboy, and Vermibus are defining their practice around the alteration and ultimately their power over commercially based public media systems. I almost cannot believe it and hope that one day you might see even more artists working this way, walk into survey gallery shows, and hear talks about the unique history of this sub genre within the public art discourse. Only time will tell.

Iselin in China and Some Thoughts on Current Work Strategies

I recently returned from a trip to China which took me through, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau, and Hangzhou. While in those cities I was able to test keys and gain access to most above ground advertising locations as part of the Public Access project. (I will be updating the PublicAdCampaign site to include the Public Access project as its own independent endeavor in the coming days, and will announce it with a new post) Without knowing whether or not I would be able to open ad locations in these new cities, I decided to pack light and only take a few posters with me. Below you can see the result of Public Access in three cities, Shanghai, Macau, and Hong Kong. 

Shanghai, China 2014

As PublicAdCampaign readers are probably well aware, my personal work is kind of all over the place. This isn't an accident, but rather a choice I made a long time ago to not develop a stylistically recognizable set of images. I thought it was the least I could do to deflect criticism that I was simply creating my own ad campaign, a chance to keep the work fresh for the audience, and ultimately would allow me room to treat the project as an experiment rather than a proof. I have enjoyed it so far, creating  figurative, abstract, sculptural, and photographic works all for similar locations.

In the past few years I have shied away from the more figurative work that I was doing early on. This happened for a number of reasons but more importantly it makes the Iselin series that is part of this post, an aberration in my current investigations. Iselin, unlike my other work these days, can be mistaken for an ad, fashion most likely, and therefor oddly out of line with a project critical of advertising. While I tend to understand this argument, it does treat the PublicAdCampaign project as an anti advertising project which is short sighted. 

My critique, and the reason my pieces never address the specific ads they remove, or comment on advertising in general, is not of the advertising content itself but of the use of public space for commercial imagery. I am under no delusions that I will wake up one day and advertising as medium will have disappeared.  I am under the delusion that I might harness control of this medium by mitigating its effects on my consciousness, starting with the cleanup of our shared public spaces. 

So its important that my work not speak about advertising directly, so that viewers don't see it as a critique of the message, and it's important that the work is recognizable as an intervention so that viewers are aware of the demand for something better. Iselin fails to do both of these things. Because she looks like she could be an ad, (in fact she is a polaroid outtake from a fashion photo shoot I was on ages ago that I decided to keep, which subsequently wore thin in my wallet over the years) she is not recognizable as an intervention, and because she looks like an ad but isn't, she might be confused with a critique of fashion imagery, albeit a pandering one at that. 

So how do I justify my use of Iselin on the street, an image I ultimately feel pretty strongly about and yet feel compelled to critically justify in some way? Currently, I am in the middle of RJ Rushmore's Viral Art, which you can download [HERE]. The book is about how the internet has affected street art and graffiti and it highlighted some interesting ideas about audience that I want to apply to the Iselin series and by doing so justify her failure on the streets and yet allow me a confidence using her in the future. 

As you can see [HERE] I originally started putting Iselin up with the caveat that she always go in new locations. This was my way of creating a project which could be ongoing and easily reproduced, and which would push me to use new locations unfamiliar to me. It was also a way for me to justify imagery that was suspect given my stated objectives. Recently that ease of reproduction is what made me carry Iselin throughout China and use her as "proof" of another project I am working on called Public Access. The Public Access project is about figuring out how to offer the tools to anyone who wants them to open bus shelters in every city in the world. When I go to a new city, I figure out the tool and then make hundreds of them. These tools then become a part of a world map which users can navigate to find the right tool for them. It's about democratizing access and sharing my knowledge.

When I crack the code, I like to let people know, and that to me is best done by installing something quickly as proof. These images then get uploaded to Instagram and my website as an archive, hash tagged #yeahwegotkeysforthat. These posts are about letting the world know that a new city has been breached so that they might involve themselves in the project. While technically an ad takeover on the street, the image used is simply a placeholder that proves my access. My first thought isn't to the public seeing the piece on the street so much as the Public Access audience around the world. 

In the context of this audience, Iselin doesn't seem so out of place anymore. The Instagram or website audience knows Iselin is an ad takeover and so questions democratic access. They also know she isn't a fashion ad and while we may argue about the detriments of using imagery which reinforces stereotypes, this world audience is in on the joke and can at least engage the image critically. While Iselin fails miserably on the street, she makes much more sense to an internet audience already in the know. The confluence of reading Viral Art and using Iselin in China to mark Public Access cities has thus altered how I would like to treat the Iselin project from now on. 

From here on I will only use Iselin's image to mark the fact that I have gained access to a new advertising venue in a new city. With a majority of my audience online these days, I see this as a reasonable justification for my use of an image that I feel strongly about, and yet which contradicts some of its audiences expectations. This in no way means that I am forgoing public works which aim to highlight their resistance to commercial use of public space, but it does signal an understanding that my work on the street has many purposes and many audiences, some of which may seem to contradict each other but which might ultimately stand their ground amidst confusion. 

Hong Kong, China 2014

Shanghai, China 2014

Shanghai, China 2014

Macau, China 2014