Guerrilla Subway PSAs Urge Riders Not To 'Snitch' On Farebeaters

VIA: Gothamist

The MTA's hectoring poster campaign aimed at combatting fare evasion is getting a radical makeover, thanks to an anonymous group of New Yorkers with a simple message for their fellow riders: "Don't snitch. Swipe." More [HERE]

MTA Board Bans Alcohol Ads on Subways, Buses and Trains

NEW YORK CITY — The MTA canned the sale of advertising to beer, wine or liquor producers, according to a decision made by board members Wednesday.

The MTA won't sell any new ads for alcohol of any MTA property, which includes Metro-North train cars, subway stations, inside cars, and on MTA buses, members of the authority's board decided at a Wednesday meeting. More [HERE]

NYC subway to get thousands of digital ad screens

Looks like the inevitable is happening and the moving image will become a more integral part of your daily commute.

VIA: NY Times
More [HERE]

Cuomo To Corporate America: Please Adopt A Subway Station

VIA: Gothamist

Governor Andrew Cuomo stood before a room of labor leaders and business interests at an Association for a Better New York breakfast Thursday, flashing a slide decorated with corporate logos: Blackstone, Estee Lauder, Hearst, MasterCard. For contributions in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Cuomo said, private business can join these companies in a new initiative to sponsor subway improvements. A separate "adopt-a-subway" program will allow companies to sponsor individual stations. More [HERE]

An Artist Swapped 'If You See Something, Say Something' Subway Posters With Pleas for Civic Engagement

VIA: City Lab

On Wednesday night, an artist swapped out a handful of MTA’s iconic “If You See Something, Say Something” subway posters with a more politically charged call to action. City Lab [HERE]

Gothamist [HERE]

MTA's 'See Something Say Something' Ads Have Been Remixed (Now With 100% Less Fearmongering)

Simple, effective and all around proper public participation in the curation of our shared environment. Bravo to those at the helm of this project. 

VIA: The Village Voice

The MTA's long-running "If You See Something, Say Something" ad campaign has already been through nine official iterations over its lifetime. Now, thanks to some anonymous New Yorkers, there's a tenth, unofficial version, that attempts to repurpose a campaign born of the fear and suspicion of the 9/11 era into a statement of solidarity in the Age of Trump. More [HERE]

Subway Therapy Project Returning Public Space to its Utopic Potential

Be it graffiti, street art, public art, or just plain scrawl, the need to mark and make meaning in public space is intrinsic to its proper function for both the individual and the collective. By monopolizing the walls of our city, and normalizing commercial discourse over public interests, advertising erodes our ability, desire, and right to use public space in meaningful and impactful ways. The Subway Therapy project at Union Square is a fine example of necessity overcoming expectation, and of public space returning to its utopic potential. More info about the Subway Therapy project [HERE]

These New NYC Subway Ad Screens Know Who's Looking at Them

VIA: Fortune Magazine

Digital advertising is going big—very big—and will soon be everywhere. The out-of-home advertising market (OOH), which includes everything from billboards to posters to Jumbotrons, is finally making a big push into the digital landscape, changing what used to be static canvases into dynamic advertising displays. More [HERE]

10 Fun Facts About Opening Day of the NYC Subway On October 27, 1904

VIA: Untapped Cities

While advertising is a fact of life in the New York City subway today and we even wax nostalgic when we see them in the vintage subway cars, it was noted that the first passengers didn’t like the ones in the station. Before the opening, the stations had been free of advertising. “Until then the stations had depended on their beautiful mural ornamentation for decoration. Everyone in the train was expressing regret that the fine appearance of things was to be marred,” writes the Times. And Mayor McClellan was just as upset, saying he didn’t know about the ads in the subway stations until then and admitted that from an artistic standpoint, “They look very bad.” Article [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.

New Work With Spectre - 2015

PublicAdCampaign 2015

PublicAdCampaign 2015

Spectre 2015

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.

Vimeo Train Wrap Thinks You Are Stupid

This Vimeo train wrap on the L-line goes all out and includes a full inner wrap as well. Not only are all the ads inside the car for Vimeo, but the seats are covered in a candy color vinyl that turns "showtime" acts into a surreal NY experience. Despite the overbearing weight of Vimeo's cry for attention, they are still smug enough to suggest that NY'ers don't like ads and therefore will love that Vimeo doesnt include them in videos, only on our trains. 

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

NOTNN - "AD RIPS"

Wish I would have found myself riding this car. 

Woman 'Shocked & Menaced' By Dexter Subway Ad Sues MTA & Showtime

VIA: Gothamist

The much-maligned series finale of Dexter was shocking to fans due to the fact that it was a terrible, no good, god-awful way to end the show. But it literally shocked at least one New Yorker, who was so traumatized by the subway advertisements for the final season, she broke her ankle. More [HERE]

Full Car Domination on the L by YouTube

These full car train dominations are part of CBS Outdoor and the MTA trying "new and innovative ways to create alternative advertising revenue streams". Not only is the entire L-train wrapped top to bottom with YouTube advertising, but every ad within each car is also for the same YouTube campaign. The result is an overwhelming experience which is simply unavoidable, that being exactly the point.

Ultimately these are stunts, infrequently popping up once in a blue moon when a company has a particularly egregious amount of money to spend on a campaign they are pushing harder than most. They confirm that for the right price, pretty much any space in the city is for sale, but to what ends. The notion that a few hundred thousand dollars, or whatever it cost YouTube to pull off this monstrosity, will help the MTA in any real or noticeable way is preposterous. With an annual operating budget in the tens of billions of dollars, advertising revenue contributions to the MTA system are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. In fact the removal of every single ad within the entire MTA system would cost riders a mere 2.5 pennies per ride, or thereabouts.

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]

From Graffiti to Advertising: This 7 Train Ad Wrap Represents a Loss of Cultural Identity

Martha Cooper posted this image to her Instagram of a full outer car advertising wrap on the elevated 7 line. The fact that this train runs directly across from the infamous 5 Pointz is not lost on her as she was integral in capturing the birth of Graffiti many years ago, and likely shot similar images of the early greats decorating the outside of NY's subway transit system. The change in content makes me think of BC Biermann's academic paper entitled "The Battle of LA: Graffiti, the Self and the Reappropriation of Semiotic Space" The sad state of our corporatized cities and the loss of cultural identity that comes with it.