Anais Florin For Bien Urbain

A few years ago I went to Bien Urbain to do some workshops and install some artwork of my own. This festival is known for their support of alternative concepts in public art and civic engagement despite the fact that it takes place in a relatively small town in France where one would expect a more provincial attitude towards art and culture. The team did not disappoint and they continue to push and defend interesting projects as they look forward to thier 10th year running. When I left Besancon I made sure to leave a set of keys behind for anyone who might want to use the advertising infrastructure for thier own messaging. Over the years a few people have done so, including Quentin Coussirat whose experience as a graphic designer and artist made incredibly thoughtful and subtle interventions. More recently Anaïs Florin took the access to public space much more literally, launching a campaign and art project to defend the Les Vaîtes worker gardens that risk extinction due to real estate development. It seems wherever you are, some things change and some things always stay the same. Read more about Anais' project below. 

Now that we completed the documentation of Anaïs Florin great project from last Bien Urbain festival, it's time to share it with you.

10 min. video (english subtitles available!): https://vimeo.com/358080128 
riso zine: http://bien-urbain.fr/fr/boutique/anais-florin-nos-jardins/
all the pictures and the project context (in spanish): https://anaisflorin.com/Nos-jardins

Anaïs is from Valencia and was invited by Hyuro to be part of the festival. She spent four days here in Besançon, three months following the issues of this local territorial fight and then one month going everyday to feel, talk, and share with gardeners about their relation to the place.

Les Vaîtes is a green place where workers used to have more or less official gardens since decades. It's a forest inside the city where it was impossible to build houses until the local government decided to sell the place to private promoters in order to build an "eco"district. Since more that 10 years, the neighbors were fighting the housing project for several reasons (to keep calm, because the feared the idea of new people coming...) and a new generation of eco-activists motivated by gardening and climate change issues helped to stop the demolition works when it started. Anaïs came in that moment where the city council and promoters were upset, the eco-activist asking themselves if the place should/could became a kind of "ZAD" and the old/immigrants gardeners were a bit lost concerning this new paradigm of civil disobedience.

After spending each day on site, taking pictures and speaking with everyone, she decided to highlight this struggle by a tribute to the place: printing 25 pictures of the gardens, painting on the sentence "Les Vaîtes before the eco-discrict" and put them illegally in city center busstops and lolipops. She also glued on 2 billboards on the border of the gardens, with sentences from the gardeners "Touching the earth is always a highlight, it's soothing. Here we work with the living. Gardening is tenderness, it feeds the eyes, it feeds the heart."

No need to say that the mayor was upset again, and that it empowers a lot of people to think/discuss/discover this local subject in a very different way than press or activism propaganda.

We released the zine for the climate strike and will soon screen the video at the gardens, sharing ways of dealing with fights/art with a theater group working on the same place/story.

It's Anaïs project but obviously a great and lovely team helped her on. Thanks to all.

Anaïs Florin – “Les Vaîtes avant l’écoquartier” #1

A few years ago I participated in Bien Urbain in Besancon France. After installing a bunch of pieces around town, I then held a workshop. Participants of the workshop made thier own posters and then as a group, we went out and put them up together without permission from the city. The basic idea was that you had to put up your own poster so that you broke that barrier between you and your shared public environment. With the entire group watching, there was a sense of safety in numbers that made it much easier for people break the rules, not to mention you didn't want to be the one person in the group that decided to chicken out in front of your peers. It was a really fantastic experience and everyone came away with a grin from ear to ear and plans to do more actions in the future. I left a set of PublicAccess keys for the Bien Urbain team and since then there have been several projects that have taken advantage of them. Quentin Cousirrat recently made me aware of a project by artist Anais Florin who made the advertising space around Besancon integral to her participation in Bien Urbain this year. Unauthorized civic media production seems to be a small but vibrant part of the Besancon public life. 

Leaving keys in cities and then years later seeing them still in use makes me incredibly happy. While I do enjoy making the keys, it can sometimes seem like a chore. When I run out of keys I spend several days restocking them by hand cutting, milling and welding all of the parts until I have enough to last another year, or sometimes just a few months. People purchase the keys for between 25 and 30 dollars, which seems like a lot, but after materials comes out to between 10 and 15 dollars for what can be several hours of work depending on which key. I don't really exhibit these functional sculptures, they just go out in the mail and I never see them again. What I do see are projects like this, which make all the time behind the drill press, boring out the centers of 6mm Hex bar, well worth the effort. 

Anaïs Florin focuses her attention on places, on their history, their transformation and the struggles associated with them. Her practice mixes art and activism in a listening dynamic and a benevolent collaboration with the people of the territory.

For the 9th edition of Bien Urbain, she intervened in the Vaîtes district by meeting the gardeners who defend this place. Her first work, “Les Vaîtes avant l’écoquartier” (“The Vaîtes before the ecodistrict”) was a collection of 25 photographs put in billboards and bus shelters in the city center and the tram line linking it to the Vaîtes district.
More [HERE]

Sante Publique - Participatory Civic Media and the Pursuit of a Collective Will

  Santé Publique_Film from Clément Fessy on Vimeo. Lately I have been thinking about the term Participatory Civic Media and what that would look like in practice. For years my work was a reaction to the misuse of our shared public space by advertising. Taking matters into my own hands I practiced a righteous form of civil disobedience in which I allowed myself to trespass on the private property rights of outdoor media companies in order to air my grievances in the court of public opinion. I still very much agree with this type of direct action tactic and feel comfortable advocating for a more lenient understanding of public visual space usage and rights. The PublicAccess project is a good example of my thoughts on the matter. In stark contrast to the broken windows theory, I believe a little anarchy on the streets is a far better scenario than the pristine walls of an over policed well controlled city.
While I would love to convince everyone to participate in the curation of thier shared environment without care for the consequences, I must admit that most people don't see the value in breaking the law to put up pictures on the street, and many people aren't compelled to do so even if it were legal. And yet I truly believe that placing something you have made onto our shared city streets is a worthwhile exercise that can change your relationship to your city. Suddenly you realize that the imagery that surrounds us is part of an attentional economy created by the accumulation of our bodies and eyeballs. Your part in creating this economy gives you rights to it usage that can suddenly feel trampled upon when you realize that advertising has commandeered the majority of our shared public environment, and we have criminalized most non transactional appropriations. Outrage might not be the right word but questioning who gets to use our shared public spaces and who benefits from its usage is the natural progression of ideas after using public space for your own thoughts and desires.   It is therefore incumbent on me to think beyond the civil disobedience projects whose righteous indignation is a good measure of my concern but less useful as a tool for mass persuasion. How can I convince citizens to participate in the curation of thier shared public spaces so that they can reap the benefits of that participation and come to realize their rights as citizens to dictate how thier cities look? The answer seems to be working in more formal ways which set aside the unsavory aspects of how I believe public space should be used in favor of participation above all else.
Last year I bit my tongue and dived head first into the Sante Publique project. After being invited to Sainte Etienne to paste on the Le Mur wall, I was told by the curators that the city had in addition offered me 75 Lollipop advertising pillars. These freestanding advertising venues were operated by a an outdoor advertising company that handled the cities public advertising on bus shelters, trams, and lollipops. As part of their contract with Sainte Etienne, 75 spaces were reserved for broadcasting of cultural events and related messaging and represented the altruism that masked the malevolence which is blanketing a city in advertising to turn a profit for private corporation. By agreeing to use these spaces I would be accepting the current version of public space usage in which private companies controlled the infrastructure on which messages were broadcast, profiting from it greatly, and returning a small bit of that space as an act of kindness to be lauded.
If I had my way we would kick the for profit advertising companies off our streets, treat the attentional economy we all create like the collective resource that it is, and use our shared public spaces to fund a vast network of participatory civic media structures meant to advocate the views of each cities unique citizenry. Baby steps. If that was the goal, I still needed to convince the public that they wanted to participate in the civic media environment. So I agreed and let go of the fact that the Sante Publique project would leave intact the system I was ultimately trying to remove. Instead I concentrated on reaching people who were unlikely to think about our shared public visual environment. bakers, teachers, scientists, singers, poets, secretaries, garbage men, and everyone in between. Instead of using the spaces for my own artwork, I would offer the spaces to these unsuspecting citizens.
The result was a city in which for 1 week 75 unique voices graced the streets and a new way of looking at the public visual environment in Sainte Etienne was established. Participants gained an appetite for seeing thier own thoughts reflected on thier city streets and those who saw thier work were offered an alternative vision in which public space was used by individuals instead of advertising and institutionally sanctioned messages. When the project was over people weren't exactly questioning if the advertising company who sanctioned our project should exist, but they were wondering why their access to public space was limited to a one off art experience. Many people asked if we would repeat the project again next year, and if it would grow to include more participants. I couldn't answer that question for sure but if Sainte Etienne was progressive enough to continue down this path, the eventual result after sustained growth would be a city with little time for the advertising on its streets and a vested interest in the Participatory Civic Media network they had slowly developed over the years.
Huge thanks to Marlene Mendes for collaborating with me on this project and to Ella an Pitr for their initial and continued support. Thanks to Clement Fessy for creating the beautiful documentation. Thanks to Raphael Jonjour and the city of Sainte Etienne for being so progressive and to all of the friends and family that helped make this happen. Last thank you to the 75 participants that took the time to contribute to this project and steward their public spaces. 

Operation Key in Hand JCDecaux (Operation clef en main)

Operation Key in Hand JCDecaux (Operation clef en main) from Workshopping the visible on Vimeo. This video is pure gold.

Last OX of 2016

I simply love this final OX piece of 2016. While the world around it remains a bit gloomy and somber, the potential of nothing gives me hope we might find our way.

New OX Collaboration In Paris

Here is a new collaboration between OX and one of his 80's crew members Trois Carre from the streets of Paris. I've said it before but I'll say it again, OX is my favorite ad takeover artists out there. While this piece is definitely a collaboration, partially cause OX just doesn't go this detailed very often and usually relies on simpler abstractions with his work, I still feel OX through and through. The relationship to the surrounding environment is something OX includes in most pieces and this collaboration relies heavily on the staircase to ground itself. For me, this is a very important tool for the ad takeover artist cause it allows the viewer to realize that something is amiss. Once that recognition happens, (something that can be very difficult given how much viewers try to avoid ad messages and how ingrained commercial messaging is in these spaces, as opposed to public art or commentary) viewers can begin the process of thinking about advertising in public spaces as a concept. We are all so aware of culture jamming, political commentary, and the general agenda of trying to undermine commercial messaging that I think it goes in one ear and out the other. Not to mention, even if you receive a culture jammed message loud and clear, you still think heavily about the company behind the errant message. In light of that it seems the only logical response to an over saturation of commercial media is to remove it entirely. To me these pieces do well by talking about the frame and not what was once inside.

Long Live Jean Claude Decaeux - An Obituary

I'm sure he was a really nice guy but christ all mighty he built an empire of...well shitty street furniture covered in ads in 3,700 cities worldwide. 

VIA: The Telegraph

Jean-Claude Decaux, who has died aged 78, was a French entrepreneur who made a fortune from outdoor advertising – on poster sites, bus shelters, kiosks, transport systems and even public lavatories. More [Here]

New Work from OX in France

PublicAdCampaign readers will know my love of OX. Here is a new one and make sure to check all of his work on his site [HERE]

RAP Press Release

Below is a press release I was sent about RAP's recent action at the JCDecaux headquarters. While this all might strike people as borderline insane, it is important to remember that advertising and it the collective influence of commercial media is not a natural state of existence but rather a momentary manifestation of capitalism run amok. Removing its influence would have far reaching positive effects on our society which may help mitigate our effect on the climate, help resolve social issues that surround economic inequality, and generally allow for an atmosphere of collectivity to appear out of a deeply selfish, every man for himself, economic model that dictates large portions of our existence. So maybe this is less crazy than you think and simply beginning of something new.

ENGLISH --------------------------------------------------------------- 
RAP invited itself to JC Decaux's headquarters ahead of the international day against advertising

Ahead of the international day against advertising taking place on the 25th of March, the french association Resistance à l’Agresion Publicitaire (Resistance to Advertising Agresion) invited itself at the headquarters of the paris-based multinational company of billboards JC Decaux.

On the banner : "Let's free the planet of ads"

Khaled Gaiji, President of RAP declares: “ in addition to violate citizens freedom of (no) reception by invading public space with advertising, the world leader of billboards also systematically violate French laws on billboards. We are here today to denounce this situation and ask to JC Decaux Executive office an appointment in order to discuss solutions to this issue that has already lasted too long”. After unpholding a banner “let’s free up the planet of ads” next to JC Decaux‘ headerquarter’s logo, Julien Simon, Human Resources Director, came to meet the President of RAP and committed to organize an appointment as soon as possible. RAP will make sure this commitment does not go unheeded.

More information :
Contact: Renaud Fossard + 33 (0)6 37 52 45 90
Link to picture (high definition):
http://journee.contrelapub.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/photo-JJC-DECAUX.Finalhd.jpg
International campaign website: http://dayagainstad.org

International Day Against Advertising March 25, 2016

More on this as it develops but there are clearly a large number of groups around the world who feel very similarly about the issues surrounding commercial media in public space. I think its time we coalesced.

Again this year, let’s free – if only for one day – the planet from advertising! For the second year in a row on March 25, the French association Resistance against Advertising Aggression (RAP) will partner with international allies and activists from around the world to speak out against advertising. This movement was launched from the Tunis call by hundreds of activists from the five continents at the World Social Forum. Read the Call of March 25, 2016. More [HERE]

OX IN SAINT ÉTIENNE

It looks like the amazing Marc Schiller over at Wooster Collective has begun posting again. Marc is a colleague whom I have admired for a long time and who recently suffered from some serious medical issues that I was made aware of through social media. While I didn't feel it was my place to reach out directly...Marc if you are reading this "I wish you the speediest full recovery and I am so happy to see your energy going back into the Wooster Collective. You and Sara's creation of that online venue so many years ago changed the course of public art and renewed the publics interest in our city streets. Thank you and I hope I get to see you around sooner than later." 

VIA: Wooster Collective

French street artist OX creates posters and billboards that impact public spaces in surprising ways. Since 2000, OX has placed about 300 works on billboards across the globe. He covers them with geometric or abstract compositions and mixes the styles of avant-garde movements with the world of commercial images. More [HERE]

Interview For Tracks - Arte

Here is a little interview/video about the NO AD project and PublicAdCampaign in general. While I don't understand a good portion of this video, I am told it gets to the point quickly and explains the projects well. A big thanks to Tracks for including me in their programming. Oh and that billboard piece in the first frame below is OX, one of my favorite artists.
Jordan Seiler, zizanie dans le métro - Tracks ARTE by Tracks_ARTE

Grenoble, première grande ville européenne à bannir la publicité de ses rues

Looks like the city of Grenoble has made the decision to remove all outdoor advertising from it's streets. While it seems like there is a healthy debate happening online about the benefits behind such a move, "the city’s deputy mayor Lucile Lheureux explained: “The business model of street advertising is down. Advertisers want to upgrade to digital screens. We don’t want to make that move. We don’t want our city’s children bombarded with animated advertising on TV screens in the street.” 

Although there will only be 326 ads removed in total, (not including the bus shelters which will stay until at least 2019 when the contract is up for renewal) for a city of this size making the bold move to improve the health of its citizens and streets, is a welcome reminder that all is not lost in the fight to improve out shared public spaces. In fact it's got more than a few industry insiders talking seriously about the backlash against brand intrusion. 

VIA: Le Dauphine

Saisissant l’opportunité de la fin de son contrat avec la société JC Decaux, la commune de Grenoble a décidé bannir la publicité de ses rues. La capitale des Alpes va donc devenir la première grande ville européenne à faire démonter ses panneaux, ses colonnes et ses "sucettes". Le but : libérer de l’espace public, développer parallèlement des lieux d’expression citoyenne, et en finir aussi avec un modèle que la municipalité EELV/PG juge « obsolète» et « trop agressif ». En tout, ce sont 326 panneaux publicitaires qui vont ainsi disparaître de l’espace public grenoblois, soit au total plus de 2 000 m² de publicité en moins dans la ville. More [HERE]

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]

Strip Box By Farewell

New work by Farewell  VIA: Vandalog

New OX Work And My Deep Hypocrisy

I realize I am so overly biased that my criticism of advertising takeover artists' work isn't very credible. Despite that misfortune,  OX never ceases to amaze me and I think it deserves some attention. OX's work breaks all of my self imposed rules over and over again, is subtle and yet not, and is always zigging when I think it will zag.

In this recent piece OX includes seven brand names, any one of which would have sent me into a furur in past readings of ad takeover work, either by himself or any other artists. Leaving the brand name is like leaving the ad, not only does it defeat the purpose of doing ad takeover work in the first place, but it subconsciously aligns the brand with a subversive art happening. (OX's choice of tire brands helps to prevent this type of association) All in all though, its a bad look. I'm also not too keen on artists using ad takeovers as an opportunity to promote thier name or brand. Websites and hashtags are an egregious misuse of an opportunity for quality civil disobedience, but using your name can also get tired and make the work about you individually as opposed to public space more generally.

I also tend to want ad takeover work to stay away from the use of imagery which could be misconstrued as advertising and therefore passed over by audiences. ( I am getting more lax about this rule in my own work but it is still an important consideration) Noticing an ad takeover has happened is the first step to a dialogue about advertisings place in our shared public environment. My thinking is it is hard enough to get viewers to engage your work in ad spaces, so why make it any more confusing than it has to be. Here OX puts a damn tire in an image that has seven tire manufacturers logos in it. For all intents and purposes this is an advertisement and yet it just isn't.

OX turns these shortcomings into advantages by using each infraction for a particular purpose. The use of brand logos, iconography, and his own name only serve to enhance the pieces overall impact, allowing him to get away with the equivalent of ad takeover murder. It is frustrating and wonderful to see OX working so deftly.

As mentioned above, the two tire images spell out OX's name, which is a motif he has used in the past, but relatively sparringly, and I never thought it his best work for stated reasons. This use is different. Here OX's name hovers over the seven brand names almost the way a larger throw up might trump all the smaller names underneath it simply by its placement above the others. The names/brands underneath serve to exalt the one name on top and it is important in this context that OX uses logos as these are the names of our commercial public personalities. While this might not be exactly the way name recognition and graffiti hierarchy are actually decided within the community, thats the way it looks to an outsider and I cant help but draw the similarities to what OX is doing here. Using the brand, his name, and finally the iconography of the brands themselves to spell his name, is a complex criticism of who should have power in public space and for a moment a demonstration of what that proper distribution might look like.

All in all the work comes off as a deft acrobatic balancing routine in which OX toys with the brand supremacy by conquering them in both size and space, does so by transmuting thier own imagery or product to serve as the medium of his names construction, all while walking a thin line between obvious ad takeover work, and oddly conceived legitimate advertising campaign. Despite my rules, I want to believe that this piece can be seen by the untrained eye, does not serve to reinforce any brand despite the use of thier logos, and does not cross promote those brands by associating subversive art practices with them. I want to believe this because if that is true, to the trained eye this piece is wonderfully complex and yet another proof that art in public space can be a thoughtful and engaging experience in the way advertising never can.

Omg Who Stole My Ads? Lavie

Luna Park sent me this artists work. It seems he takes over advertising locations and replaces the imagery with old masters work. I love the concept, but let us know what you think. More [Here]

Happy New Poster From OX

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

OX Paris 2013

OX + Rero 2013

Above is the newest OX collaborative billboard with artist Rero. If you take a look at OX's site you'll find the rest in this series, and of course his amazing body of work. PublicAdCampaign readers might not know Rero's work but it is definitely worth checking out his site [Here]. Indoors, outdoors, over advertising, Rero's work uses text to make fantastic meaning and connections with the viewer.