A MARKETING CAMPAIGN AGAINST ADVERTISING

Below is a wonderful essay by RJ Rushmore for Monument Lab. Im not sure how much RJ is aware of the writing of Jeff Ferrell but his sentiments echo a lot of Jeff's criminological research. Pigeon holed by the anti advertising title, most anti advertising activists are actually trying to imagine what might replace the commercial images that surround us if given the chance. RJ is well aware of this and like a lot of us, trying to figure out how to recontextualize what he is doing so that it broadens his demands and has more potential to change not only our streets, but fundamental ways in which we interact and exist with one another. Fantastic.

VIA: Monument Lab

Skateboarders refuse to see the city as intended. It is a playground. It is theirs. Every curb, bench, and set of stairs is a potential skateable object. Even though I put down my own skateboard around age 15, that mindset stayed with me. Skateboarding gave me a gift: the inclination to resist the pressures that cities feed us to be passive. As I've spent the last decade alongside artists who intervene in public spaces (be that through street art, graffiti, public art, or street performance), that inclination has matured, evolved, and became the driving force behind my work as a writer and curator. More [HERE]

The War on Messaging: Advertising and the Fight for Your Attention

Very Excited to be on a panel with my colleagues and good friends RJ Rushmore and Katherine Lorimer, Moderated by Josh McPhee on May 2nd at 7pm. We will talk briefly about our individual projects and relationship to the ad takeover world and then open it up to Josh and the audience to delve deeper into the efficacy and motivations of ad takeover work. Please come out and support our work and the Moniker fair which has been kind enough to host us. 

NYC Kiosks Invite Artists to Pay Nearly $1,000 to Show Their Work

Another Pay to Play Opportunity for Art in Public Spaces. RJ Rushmore of AiAP writes for Hyperallergic about the New MVOV campaign on LINK NYC.

RJ does as a great job calling out MVOV and the absurdity of paying a gatekeeper to use our shared public spaces. Often the inclusion of art into the commercial space that we call public space is an opportunity for some commercial enterprise and this example is not different. Usually art and artists are used to give respectability to public space land grabs by consumerist ideologies but this example is just straight profiteering. You want to see your work in public space? Do like the rest of us and pay up.

LinkNYC, the “communications network” of digital advertising displays disguised as WiFi hotspots on New York City streets, has gotten into the artwashing game. Artists are being asked to pay to play in what is marketed as an open call for art in public space. More [HERE]