May All Your Time Be Screen Time!

AugmentAd Reality from Richard Harris on Vimeo.
Visit the website [Here]

Snap's newest Lenses could make any surface a billboard

VIA: Engadget

The next evolution of Snapchat's Lenses could add more than just a flower crown to your selfies. According to a new report from The Information, Snap Inc. is working on a smarter version of its cartoonish filters and world lenses that could overlay images -- and advertisements -- onto a variety of real-world objects. More [HERE]

Augmented reality and artistic experience(s)

It is 2017 so lets talk about the future by talking about our past work.  NO AD: NYC from Heavy on Vimeo. “Augmented reality and artistic experience(s)”: the choice of title is not down to chance. In effect, if there is one area that indeed proposes to “augment” the artistic experience, both in its creative process – the production - but also in our experience, apprehension and discovery of art, it is virtual reality and its associated technologies, mixed reality and augmented reality. Perhaps even more than its contemporary virtual reality – that has benefitted for two years from disproportionate prominence –augmented reality or AR, appears capable to us, on a daily basis, and very simply (AR only requires a smartphone or a tablet) of transforming both creativity AND artistic experiences. Through detailed examination, Digitalarti will aim to provide support for this theory, but also to offer examples of what is being done, attempting to highlight the pertinence and the originality of the proposed approaches. In short, we will present a panorama of art in augmented reality. More [HERE]

NO AD NYC: Another Face In The Crowd by Hugh Lippe

As you may have heard, NO AD NYC is shutting down at the end of the month so that we can work on other projects and take the time to look for meaningful institutional support for the NO AD app. Before we do, we are blessed to be able to present a final exhibition from my good friend Hugh Lippe. I went to school with Hugh at the Rhode Island School of Design and we were close friends. As photography students we worked with each other on numerous projects and even presented our final graduating exhibitions together in 2002. 

I have always felt strongly about Hugh's eye. He has an uncanny ability to see deeply with his lens and find beauty in often unsettling subjects and environments. When I saw his most recent body of work entitled Another Face In The Crowd, I reached out to him immediately, knowing I wanted to present them as the final NO AD exhibition. These photos of NYC residents are intrusive and voyeuristic, and yet compassion runs through them all as I find myself deeply attached to the emotional lives that my mind builds for these individuals. A huge thanks to Hugh for allowing us access to this unfinished body of work and I hope everyone takes a moment to explore this final exhibition of photographs. 

Today, 10-06-15, the NO AD app updates to feature Another Face In The Crowd, a selection of images from Hugh Lippe's ongoing body of work by the same name.

Another Face In The Crowd: In Hugh Lippe's latest body of work the faces of NYC come into sharp, and often unsettling focus. These photos, taken with a telephoto lens, isolate the individual and hone in on the subject with a compelling sense of compassion. Presented here as an unfinished project and as the final exhibition for the NO AD app, we hope NO AD viewers will find a glimpse of themselves in the images presented and are brought closer to those around them. We can't thank Hugh enough for his incredible work, so befitting our final exhibition.

Originally from Texas, Hugh relocated to the East Coast in pursuit of an art education. Having graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2002, he developed a strong foundation within the arts. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including the Amsterdam-based museum FOAM. Hugh has had several solo exhibitions, his most recent, "The Dirt Under My Nails" exhibited at Rare Gallery NYC.

Hugh attributes his honest, humanistic and at times 'raw' approach to the many colorful memories he has experienced over the years.

NO AD APP TURNS ADVERTISEMENTS INTO STREET ART – IN BERLIN

Nice little writeup on Wide Walls about NO AD running in Berlin. 

VIA: WIDE WALLS

If you take a look at panorama of some big city in the world, you will probably see some huge billboards around. These huge outdoor advertising structures might ruin your view, right? If you use public transport, there is a big chance you will be “forced” to read commercial messages from the advertising posters on bus, train or subway stations. Commercials and advertisements are all around us (in public and virtual world), and sometimes it can be exhausting – we are living in a world when it is difficult to absorb so much information. Imagine if you could transform ads into art! Well, it is possible thanks to the No Ad App (mobile application) created by Re+Public. This application has just been launched in Berlin! More [HERE]

NO AD Goes to Berlin

I couldnt be more excited to announce that NO AD, the NYC based mobile digital exhibition space that takes advantage of the vast subway advertising infrastructure of the New York subway system, now works in Berlin. Users can download a separate NO AD Berlin app on iOS [HERE] and Android [HERE] which uses the vast billboard advertising infrastructure that adorns Berlin streets and metro stations. 

________________________________________

The NO AD mobile digital exhibition space began in New York City as a way to propose new strategies for art consumption as well as challenge the use of our public space for commercial messaging. NO AD works by using your mobile device and augmented reality technology to recognize outdoor advertising and overlay digital artwork in place of the advertisement on your phone or tablet. In NYC, the NO AD exhibition space took advantage of the vast number of subway advertisements in the NY transit system, turning every subway station into a mobile gallery. In Berlin, the NO AD exhibition space uses the the vast network of outdoor, and subway billboards found throughout the city. In order to reveal the exhibition, simply start NO AD and while standing directly in front of any billboard in Berlin, point your device at the advertisement.

NO AD Berlin is presented by PublicAdCampaign and Open Walls Gallery for Berlin Art Week, 2015. The images and artworks included are taken from a collection of past NO AD NYC exhibitions that include street art, photography, painting, and animation works.

Exhibition Dates: Sept 14th - Oct 31st

A big thanks to Guillaume Trotin, Aida Gomez, Letitia Jacquot for their support in Berlin without which this exhibition would not have been possible.

Augmented Reality and New Gallery Works

The works presented below should also be viewed with a free augmented reality app, PublicAdCampaign Now! downloadable for Android [HERE]. 

I have been working on a new series of gallery pieces that focus on my long term struggle to take back outdoor advertising spaces without imposing my own aesthetics on the public or running an ad campaign for myself, while at the same time making visible my tactics in the hopes of promoting similar behavior in others. I do this to ask whether or not we should adorn our cities with commercial messages in light of the many other types of visual stimulus we could offer ourselves, and with the understanding that advertising in general has a net negative effect on our personal psychology and thus our global behavior as a species. 

These works are as close as I think I have come to reaching that goal for a number of reasons. First, while people who are familiar with my work may look at these installations and assume it was me, I think thier utter simplicity anonymizes my actions and prevents the installation from being promotional. If you don't know who made the piece, you cant think about the person behind it and therefore must instead have a relationship to the image alone. That said, you must notice the installation in the first place and I think the striking difference between the imagery used for this series, and advertising, helps to create that initial interaction. 

So now we have someone looking at an anonymous installation that removed an advertisement for some unknown reason. This is the space I want the viewer to end up, as it allows them to begin the conversation with themselves about the difference between the two types of imagery, advertisings ubiquity and role in our public spaces, and all of the other questions we should be asking ourselves when thinking about how we want our public visual environment to be used. Given the opportunity to disassociate these physical locations with thier expected advertising content, viewers are free to enter a line of thinking that is almost unheard of... "Should we have, and do we need, outdoor advertising intruding on our public spaces and minds? 

While the initial performative aspect of these pieces works on the public viewer, these images are ultimately meant to hang in a gallery context, potentially loosing the credibility, and directness of the illegal physical takeover that is the proof of my ambitions. After all, these images are very clearly composites, a single moment created by compiling many hours of patient waiting into a single frame. If the images have gone through photoshop, what prevents the actual installation from being a fraud, and the proposed argument that the document depicts undeserving of our attention.

For this, the final element of AR, and the PublicAdCampaign Now! app come in to tell the rest of the story. Video of me actually installing the piece which is to become the image you are looking at in the gallery plays over the still image when viewed through the app, proving the aesthetics to be in service of the idea and the work to be sincere. Once this sincerity is established, I think the gallery viewer can come to a similar thought trajectory as the public viewer and honestly consider the proposed argument that is established by me actively breaking the law to remove commercial media and replace it with something else, whatever that might be.

Grand Opening Exhibition At Openwalls Berlin

Recently I had the pleasure of exhibiting with my new friend Vermibus at Openwalls Gallery in Berlin. His work, like my own, takes advantage of the large outdoor advertising infrastructure in our public spaces in order to tease out questions of how we choose to adorn the cities we live in. Focusing on fashion imagery, Vermibus removes, reworks, and then reinstalls fashion advertising in public spaces. It is quite effective and given my background in the fashion photography world, something that I feel strongly about supporting.

While I was in Berlin I put up a few pieces, including a quick hit with Vermibus which saw us each take a single side of a two sided bus shelter. Once I get those images together I will make them available here.

Soren Solkaer is Offering A Signed Book to NO AD Users

As many PublicAdCampaign readers know, the NO AD mobile app has been running for close to a year now, exhibiting a wonderfully diverse lineup of shows. From Sebastiao Salgado, to a group show of Gif artists, we have been trying to keep things exciting for those long term users we love so much. It has always been a hope of ours to encourage user participation, as well as offer prints or art through the app, so we are excited to announce a little contest.

If this is all new to you, visit the NO AD website [HERE]

This month, NO AD is exhibiting 100 images from the Surface Project by Soren Solkaer, and he has decided to make things interesting by offering a signed copy of the Surface book to the NO AD user who finds the most images, takes a screenshot, and posts it to Instagram with the hashtag #sorensolkaer. For instance, tagging the image below gets you two points towards a win. May 30th NO AD will change content and the contest will be over. Soren will tally the hastaged posts and contact the winner directly shortly after. Happy Hunting!

Animated GIFs meet augmented reality and street art

I could not be more excited about the launch of the most recent NO AD curatorial project. RJ Rushmore has gathered 13 Gif artists to present the most exciting use of the NO AD technology yet. Each advertisement in the subway this month will trigger the moving image and with that, usher in an expectation that NO AD will continue to reach beyond the static 2D image and present its users with high quality content that takes advantage of this digital format. Visit the site now and get started. www.noad-app.com

A screenshot from Bob-omb, featuring stills of GIF art by James Kerr (Scorpion Dagger) and Dave Whyte.

This month Re+Public is excited to release an all-GIF art update to the NO AD app, in collaboration with RJ Rushmore of Vandalog. NO AD is a free mobile app that uses Augmented Reality technology to resurface New York subway advertisements with art, creating an alternative digital exhibition space. Viewers can discover works of art throughout the city’s subway system. The more stations you visit, the more art you experience. With this update, every piece in the exhibition will be animated, and NO AD will be highlighting GIF art for the first time.

This week, the NO AD app updates to feature Bob-omb, an exhibition of animated GIFs curated by RJ Rushmore. Bob-omb includes 39 of GIFs by 13 individuals and collectives, weaponizing GIF art as a tool for reimaging public space. The artists range from filmmakers to illustrators to journalists, and the variety and depth of their artwork should surprise any viewers who may think that GIFs are primarily for memes and Buzzfeed articles. With this exhibition, NO AD users will be able to take static subway advertisements and transform them into dynamic artworks on their smartphones.

Artists featured in Bob-omb include by The Barkers, Caitlin Burns, Dave Whyte, Hrag Vartanian, James Kerr – Scorpion Dagger, Jeremyville, Maori Sakai, Molly Soda, Paolo Čerić aka Patakk, Ryan Seslow, The Current Sea, YoMeryl, and Zack Dougherty.

Bob-omb continues NO AD’s history of collaborating with curators to bring new and surprising art to public spaces through Augmented Reality technology. Previous exhibitions in NO AD have included collaborations with the International Center of Photography and Subway Art Blog amongst others. Future updates to the app will highlight additional collaborations with institutions and curators across disciplines. NO AD’s mission is to create an alternative exhibition space for New Yorkers, bringing them closer to the rich cultural content the city has to offer.

NO AD app Continues to Bring New Content to the NYC Subways in 2015

With the new year comes new content for the NO AD app. This month, we have an exhibition curated by Jowy Romano called Unlimited Ride, which focuses on artists who use the subway as muse. Following Unlimited Ride, NO AD will present a Gif exhibition and look forward to more exciting content in the months to come. With new projects gearing up, we hope you will download the NO AD app and continue to follow this project in 2015. 

UNLIMITED RIDE Curated by Jowy Romano

The New York City Subway is a source of much frustration for its riders, but it also acts as a source of inspiration for many artists. From its oddly beautiful, dilapidated stations; to its iconic train cars; to its riders from all walks of life—the Subway has unlimited potential as a catalyst for art.

Unlimited Ride, a completely digital art show appearing on the NO AD platform, explores the Subway with a diverse group of artists working in several different mediums. The project includes cartoon portraits by Ami Plasse, sculpture by Brina Thurston, sketches by Elbow Toe, watercolor paintings by Joan Iaconetti, MetroCard mosaics by Nina Boesch, black and white photography by Ramin Talaie, oil paintings by Seth Tane and color photography by Stephen Mallon.

More information about NO AD is available in its initial media release and on its website. The app is available for Apple and Android devices. Download at the links below.

 Joan Iaconetti

 App screenshot. Left: Ramin Talaie, Right Ami Plasse

Demo image NO AD x Subway Art Blog - January 2015 www.noad-app.com www.subwayartblog.com

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.

The NO AD Mobile App is Finally Here

For the past several years I have been working with BC Biermann on Augmented Reality projects under the title Re+Public. Today, in collaboration with Jowy Romano of The Subway Art Blog, we launch NO AD. This mobile app brings together years of illegal street art antics and my fascination with AR's ability to completely alter our relationship to public space. Below is the gist of the press release we sent out, but I wanted to discuss some of my personal thoughts on the project here as well. If you aren't familiar with NO AD, you might watch this VIDEO before reading this post.

NO AD is complicated. It is born out of an interest in getting rid of advertising and replacing that visual content with something better, be it art or whatever else a city might come up with to adorn its own walls. It also shares a history with ad takeover street art work that physically replaces ads with art, initiatives like the artiviser, and Add Art. And yet in practice, NO AD really makes you look at the ads as you try to determine which ones you have already triggered in your pursuit of the new art content strewn across the subway system. It's a little technical issue that should be addressed.

In fact all ad takeover work seems to have this same issue lurking in its shadows. When we do work in bus shelters and take on that medium, we attract attention to those same shelters we did not takeover as the public pursues our street work around the city. It's inevitable that we bring unwanted attention to ads in the process. One hopes that despite the increased consumption of advertising caused by our anti advertising activities, a language of dissent is being established that did not exist before. Maybe you ingested a few more ads, but at least you can envision the alternative.

So on the one hand, I hope NO AD serves as an example of what could be as a lot of anti advertising work does. In the same way AR is being used to show you what that coffee table will look like in your living room, or how that eyeshadow color will jive with your complexion, NO AD shows us what our transit system might look like if we had a choice.

While NO AD currently suffers from your need to actually engage ads to use it, wearables will make this issue moot. If I was wearing a heads up display and running NO AD, it would be a functional ad-blocker for public space. This is something I am very interested in and yet something that makes people very uncomfortable. As artists try to alter public space for the better, we make physical changes that effect everyone. Sometimes that effect is a point of contention, but in general the process is a public dialogue between what works and what doesn't for the larger population. A wearable NO AD app side steps this entire drama and puts everyone in control of thier own public space in an oddly disengaging and separating way. No longer are public space issues publicly negotiated, they are just augmented away.

An augmented world is a scary proposition but not one that we can deny is right around the corner. I think NO AD embraces this issue early on and I hope it is a discussion point. What do we allow an augmented public space to look like as a public? What would it mean for us socially if we allowed an app to augment out the homeless? Its a relevant question that the future is going to throw at us so we should probably start thinking about our answers now.

Given all of the issues surrounding NO AD's effectiveness as a true ad blocker, and its ushering in a future public space doomed to separate us all, as a way to bring art to New York it works pretty damn well. I hope NO AD is able to fulfill my goal of being updated with very different content every month, curated by individuals, institutions and other wacky organizations. A lot of New Yorkers do not take advantage of the immense arts resources NY has to offer, myself included. We also spend a huge amount of time commuting through our underground rivers. If this app can use the ad infrastructure to bring massive amounts of constantly changing, 2D, 3D, film, music, and other media, I think it fulfills its role as being a useful tool. The other dark waters it stirs are what makes it art. Enjoy!

VIMEO LINK: https://vimeo.com/105301636

New York City has one of the largest and most robust transit networks in the world with a subway system spanning 468 stations throughout the five boroughs. On average, there are over 4 million daily rides, making the subway system by far the most used form of transit in New York City. Littered throughout almost every station is a repetition of movie, television, product, and alcohol ads, which take advantage of NY’s immense captive transit audience and turn our daily commute into one long commercial for the latest products and commercial messages. For a city that prides itself on being a leading cultural center, and despite the valiant efforts of our MTA arts programming, New York City subways seem to lack a cultural richness befitting this great metropolis.

NO AD, created by Re+Public (PublicAdCampaign + The Heavy Projects) in collaboration with Jowy Romano of Subway Art Blog, aims to remedy this imbalance by using the preexisting advertising infrastructure as a new digital exhibition space. Users are encouraged to download the free iOS or Android app to their smart devices. Once the app is running, simply pointing your device at any of the 100 most widely circulating subway platform advertisements will cause the device to overlay curated digital art content, creating an augmented experience that blocks unwanted advertising. (See below for the specific subway platform advertising format NO AD works on)

Because the advertising is constantly changing in the subways, so too will the content users see through the app. Each week NO AD will auto update, replacing the new advertisements with original content. In an effort to keep the user experience fresh, we will collaborate with prominent cultural institutions to drastically alter the nature of the content offered, from street art, to photography, to music, poetry, and moving images, you can expect the NO AD app to continually provide new content.

We intend NO AD to bring a rich variety of cultural content to users and integrate itself into your daily commute. It is, however, not by chance that we do this using the preexisting advertising infrastructure. Overexposure to commercial has been linked to our behavior and psyche, with studies from the PIRC suggesting “…that advertising may be encouraging society to save less, borrow more, work harder and consume greater quantities of material goods.” This behavior, in turn, puts an unnecessary burden on our environment and ourselves as we forgo personal experiences for material obsession. We see NO AD as a precursor to a viable physical ad blocking software that, used in conjunction with soon to be available heads up display technologies, will drastically alter our relationship to visual imagery in our shared public spaces.

Test NO AD by clicking on the links above to install and then testing on the image below. 

A huge thanks to the artists that provided the amazing content for the first month of this app: Adam Amengual – Amy Arbus-Beau Stanton – Caroline Caldwell – Dadi Dreucol – Dal East – Dan Bergeron – Daniel Jefferson – Dr. D - Elizabeth Winnel – Elle – El Tono – Faith 47 – Hugh Lippe – Ian Strange – Icy and Sot – Influenza – Jay Shells – Jeff Stark – Jilly Ballistic – John Fekner – Jon Burgerman – Jordan Seiler – Know Hope – Leon Reid IV – LNY – Logan Hicks – Luna Park – Mario Brotha – Michael Alan – Michael De Feo – Mobstr – Neko – Noxer – Nuria Mora – OX – Pedro Sega – Peter Fuss – Poster Boy – Remi Rough – Ron English – Rone – Saber – Sean Martindale – Sheryo – Skullphone – Stikman – Stormie Mills – Tara McPherson – Tod Seelie – Trap – Vermibus – WK Interact – Work Hard Be Nice

PUBLICation from FORM in Perth, WA

PUBLIC was an wonderful arts and mural festival in Perth, WA that I took part in a few months ago. It brought together local and international artists to not only paint murals, but create programming and outreach that asked the public to contribute to a dialogue about how our cities are curated. Looking to make the festival a yearly event, Form created PUBLICation to speak to some of the issues address by the project, and gain some unique insight into the artists and thier processes. I was happy to contribute my thoughts about public space more generally and why a vibrant city street is key to a democratically oriented society. Read the digital version [HERE]

Re+Public in Austin, TX and Perth, WA

Over a month ago we returned from a bit of travel and are only now getting around to posting about it. Apologies for the delayed report but better late than never.

Re+Public digital interactive mural for PUBLIC festival - Perth, WA

Many PublicAdCampaign readers are familiar with a secondary project we are working on called Re+Public. Its a collaboration 3 years in the making with our friends over at The Heavy Projects. You can visit our website [HERE] but long story short it is an investigation into Augmented Reality as a tool for public space media creation, and curation.

At a point in the not too distant future, many of us will be wearing smart glasses and other forms of heads up displays. These wearable smart phones will allow a level of digital overlay onto our daily lives that will have drastic effects on the way we experience public space. While there are arguments for and against this technology, heads up displays will be ubiquitous wether you like it or not. The upside, and reason for our initial interest in AR, is that you may one day be able to digitally opt out of outdoor advertising signage by simply running a digital ad blocking app.

With this core interest in mind, we began exploring AR's capabilities several years ago by helping other artists create digital interactive components to thier physical 2d murals. This was a way for us to familiarize ourselves with the unique capabilities of AR, its ability to integrate into the 3d environment, use interactivity and data collection to engage the user, turn static imagery into time based narrative media, and leap into the past through historical digital overlays.

Recently we were asked to take those skills and apply them to two murals of our own design in Austin Texas, and Perth, Western Australia. While these explorations do not constitute anti-advertising work, nor do they challenge ideas about who has access to our shared media environment, they are part of a process of investigation which will bring this technology to bear on those core PublicAdCampaign interests. We hope to bring you news of new AR anti-advertising initiatives soon. Until then enjoy the pretty pictures. We had a blast!


The PUBLIC festival in Perth was run by Form and it looks like it will be an ongoing yearly event considering the fantastic response from local residents. Form essentially invited 50 Australian and international street artists and muralists, to paint downtown Perth over the course of 2 weeks. Satellite projects in the Pilabra, with inner city youth, as well as parties and gallery exhibitions rounded out a packed program that got the city talking about art and culture's role in developing a healthy vibrant city of the future. It was exciting to see new digital media creeping into what would normally be more traditional mural arts programming. We can't thank Form enough for having the vision and gumption to invite the Re+Public team.

 Re+Public digital interactive mural for PUBLIC festival - Perth, WA

 Re+Public digital interactive bus shelter for PUBLIC festival - Perth, WA

 Re+Public digital interactive bus shelter for PUBLIC festival - Perth, WA

Re+Public digital interactive mural for PUBLIC festival - Perth, WA

This year we were also invited to SXSW interactive to do a enormous wheat pasted mural measuring 84'x34'. This was our first real foray into mural making at this scale and we were excited that we got the thing on the wall, let alone that the locals seemed to like it. A big thanks to the IEEE, and Qualcomm for helping to offset the cost of this murals production. 

Re+Public digital interactive mural for SXSW Interactive - Austin, TX

Expect a new Re+Public mural in NYC come mid September. Until then we will keep you posted about less frivolous endeavors with Augmented Reality as soon as we can. 

Re+Public - Augmented Reality Video Release

Keith Harring Augment, Bowery Wall NYC, 2012

As many PublicAdCampaign readers know, we have spent the past 10 years on an artistic/activist adventure, investigating the relationship between commercial media and our shared public visual environment. Projects have ranged from individual campaigns to massive civil disobedience projects, speaking engagements and teaching, to legal battles and gallery exhibitions. While our intentions have always been to promote the greater good, our tactics have often been required to reside in a more dubious arena, falling somewhere short of fully legal and always outside of mainstream practice.

How & Nosm Augment, Wynwood Walls Miami, 2012

Two years ago I began working with another like mind at The Heavy Projects on an augmented reality mobile application. We saw AR as a way to leap the private property boundaries that made my artistic activism illegal and put curatorial responsibility in the hands of the public. In the future, no longer will billboards and other outdoor media demand your attentions as you walk through public space. Instead we will curate our public visual experience in new and exciting ways.

MOMO Original Augment, Wynwood Walls Miami, 2012

Today we released some video footage of two projects we recently completed which you can view by clicking the above photos. The first is a "resurrection" project done at the infamous Bowery Wall in NYC and the second is a more advanced interactive mural project done at Wynwood Walls Miami this past December. While I am excited to release these videos to the world, I am looking forward to more progressive uses of the technology in 2013, the eventual goal being to deploy a full scale digital mural program here in NYC.

website: www.republiclab.com
facebook: www.facebook.com/republiclab

Free The Billboards - A Non Invasive Takeover That Gets Right to the Point

A friend of mine named Matt Allen tipped me off to this quirky and fantastic project out of Portland called Free The Billboards. The projects creator, Nina Montenegro shares similar thoughts on the oppressive nature of billboard advertising and the need to reinvigorate public space with a public consciousness. But instead of pasting over them like so many of my friends, Nina simply envisions her utopia in all its wonderfully idiosyncratic ways by creating a sculpture through which to view an alternative world. She has in affect augmented the billboard with a publicly defined imagery and if you stare through the viewfinder to her world, that augment comes alive. 

As part of the project, Nina has created a petition you can sign [Here] which asks Portland, Or, to ban billboards outright in the hopes that a more artistic and community driven media might fill its place. 

What an incredible project. 

Who Owns the Advertising Space in an Augmented Reality World?

John Havens wrote a very interesting little article about Advertising in an Augmented world. Enjoy!

VIA Mashable

"Smart brands will also encourage the use of a preferred browser via value-added incentives for users. Imagine the year 2013, where the official SXSW mobile app is enhanced with AR browser Junaio. Attendees will download the app, as it’s the only way to see exclusive video content available on the virtual banners behind speakers. Brands will sponsor the app, and attendees will be entertained between panels with clickable content they can share with their social graph."

More [Here]

New Project Hopes to Turn Building Facades Into Virtual Murals You Can See on Your iPhone

As you may or may not know me and my friend at The Heavy Projects have been working on getting an Augmented Reality mural project off the ground. There are some exciting developments I cant wait to let everyone know about but until then here is a nice article from The LA Weekly. Enjoy!

VIA: The LA Weekly

Los Angeles isn't known as a city with great public spaces. It's a city that traditionally has been beholden to private interests, back-room development deals and, of course, the car. Not coincidentally, it's also a city that has been hostile to street art, until it recently began conflating murals with commercial messages and battling multiple billboard lawsuits. As the city slowly begins to course-correct its past mistakes, a new art initiative addresses the intersection of private space and public art -- entirely virtually.More [HERE]

Virtual Murals for Real-Life Buildings

Big thanks to Emily Badger for writing this nicely informed explanation of what we are trying to do with the Re*public Mobil App. 

VIA The Atlantic Cities

If you want to paint a public mural, you will need at least several of these things: money, connections to someone who has money, a building, or permission to use someone else’s. Oh, and lots and lots of paint. For all of these reasons, public art is a lot harder to come by in most cities than its commercial counterpart: billboards, fliers, and advertisements. More [Here]