Véronique Vienne Unidentified Floating Objects

VIA : Design Observer

There is no name, no credit line, no logo, no message, no words of any sort on the ubiquitous blue and green posters. Yet they are everywhere in France: in and around the 900 SNCF train stations, along the passages that connect the Paris’ 303 Metro stops, and inside the 700 subway trains that crisscross the French capital on 125 miles of track. Introduced in 2009, the posters have been proliferating ever since. Recently, the RATP, the public-transport operator, plastered even more of them in the subway trains, “floating” them inside display cases ordinarily occupied by advertisements. More [HERE]

New Klone Bus Shelters in Tel Aviv

I sent Klone a key a while back and it looks like it worked. That means there is access in Tel Aviv so check it off the list. See more of Klone's work [HERE]

More Billboards Coming To Los Angeles? Judge Rules City’s Off-Site Sign Ban Unconstitutional

Just when I was beginning to like Los Angeles.....Ugh

VIA: Ban Billboard Blight

Los Angeles has been trying to shed its label as the country’s billboard capital, but Clear Channel and other companies pushing to put up new digital billboards got a major boost this week when a Superior Court judge ruled that the city’s ban on new off-site signs violates the free speech guarantee of the California state constitution. More [HERE]

NO AD Launches With ICP Content

Summary: NO AD is proud to announce our first collaboration with the International Center of Photography (ICP). Taking advantage of NO AD’s unique digital platform, ICP will showcase works from its current exhibition, Sebastião Salgado: Genesis. 

VIDEO LINK: https://vimeo.com/105301636 
WEBSITE: noad-app.com

 

Sebastião Salgado, A San hunter holds a korhaan (Eupodotis melanogaster). This bird is captured using its eggs as bait and a snare made of twigs. When the korhaan tries to retrieve the egg, its neck becomes trapped in the noose. Botswana. 2008. © Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas images—Contact Press Images.
 

NO AD is a free mobile device application that uses Augmented Reality technology to resurface NYC subway advertisements with art, creating a new exhibition space on top of old advertising infrastructure. For more information about NO AD, download our initial press release [HERE]. Like any new exhibition space, we want to bring arresting content to our users on an ongoing basis. We will do this by working with institutions and curators to provide unique content from all disciplines.

From mid-October through the end of November, NO AD will display photographic works in conjunction with the renowned International Center of Photography. The first part of the ICP’s participation will be dedicated to Sebastião Salgado: Genesis, an exhibition on view through January 11, 2015, at the International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY. NO AD will include 54 arresting images of fleeting cultures and environment, presented alongside a video of the artist’s thoughts on climate change.

As the first of many collaborations ahead, we want to thank ICP for its vision and support. We hope that NO AD will become an alternative exhibition space for New Yorkers, bringing them closer to the rich cultural content this city has to offer. We could not be happier that ICP has chosen to use this new format to reach out to new audiences in progressive ways. For more information visit the web links below, or download the app and test it using the advertising image provided.

NO AD x ICP (Oct. 15 – Nov. 31)
www.noad-app.com
www.icp.org

After you download NO AD you can use the image below to test it right on your computer.

New Work by OX in Paris

I am not shy about my love for OX's work, but these two pieces stand out as exceptional even for his standards. Site specificity is often a part of street work, as is temporality. Here we have both.

NYC now has hundreds of ad beacons in phone booths (update: mayor orders them removed)

I've been seeing strange things happening to NY phonebooths over the past year or so. Suddenly a booth would appear, wrapped in a piece of sheet metal with a large sticker ad adhered to the entire three sided surface. It was strange because the installation covered what were three regular and working advertising boxes, for seemingly no reason. Well that reason has been revealed to be the installation of a Gimbal beacon capable of communicating with your smart phone and collecting passive data used to build a user profile. I'm glad to finally know why these strange phonebooths have started appearing and sad to know its part of a larger push to make advertising more effective, and invasive. 

VIA: Engadget

Buzzfeed has learned that New York City allowed hundreds of bluetooth beacons to be installed without public consultation, a decision that has roused the ire of privacy groups. Outdoor ad outfit Titan installed around 500 Gimbal beacons in phone booths around Manhattan, skirting normal red tape by saying they were deployed for maintenance purposes only. However, it admitted it's also using them to decide when to rotate ad panels and recently pushed smartphone ads to Tribeca Film Festival participants. The devices can also pick up location and time data, though Titan told the NY Daily News that it is "absolutely, categorically not" doing so unless users opt in and install a third-party app. More [HERE]

Daredevils climb a skyscraper in Hong Kong to hijack a billboard

Well if you thought it couldn't be done, here is proof it can. The bar has officially been raised for ad takeover work. 
VIA: Sploid Hong Kong is one of those crazy future cities in the world where buildings kiss the sky and people are stacked on top of people and streets hide alleys which hide labyrinths which hide awesome. It's great. It's also great for climbing to the top of a skyscraper to hijack a billboard. These guys proved that. More [HERE]

Jerry Seinfeld Delivers Hilarious Anti-Advertising Award Speech

This might not be earnest, or maybe it was. In the end who cares, cause the advice is sound.

Madrid's Public Transit, Brought to You by Megacorporations

VIA: The Atlantic City Lab

For rent: one subway system. That seems to be the approach of Madrid Metro, which is taking public transit advertising to unprecedented levels. Until the end of October, users of Madrid Metro’s map app (downloaded 1.2 million times so far) will find their plan peppered with the logo of a supermarket chain. Thanks to a deal with French retail giant Carrefour—continental Europe’s answer to Walmart—logos of the megachain will appear wherever there’s one near a Metro station. The idea is to channel passengers in need of groceries straight off of trains and into nearby markets. There are over 100 stores on the map, making Madrid’s Metro map app look like it’s broken out with a serious case of Carrefour acne. More [HERE]