FaceApp Shows We Care About Privacy but Don’t Understand It

I have been posting a lot of articles on data privacy because it related directly to my interest in outdoor advertising and the influence industry as a whole. While advertising and OOH advertising more specifically tried to greet you where you were in an effort to capture your attention and influence the trajectory of your thoughts, your digital data exhaust is being used to predict in more accurate ways than you can imagine, your emotional and psychological profile at any given moment in an effort to serve that influence to you on a device you have already given your undivided attention. The goal, like advertising is not mind control, but the subtle nudge of outcomes. Don't demand a society that bows to consumer culture and finds itself so deep in the forest of capitalism that we cannot see our way out, but rather slowly push us there over generations by making each moment of each individuals life more likely to involve a consumer interaction. With enough data, this doesn't become a hypothetical but an inevitable outcome of a society that has allowed our daily lives to be subtly influenced by the needs of capital over the needs of our society. 

VIA: NY Times

FaceApp, a mobile face-editing application, has all the necessary components for a viral privacy scandal: a catchy concept, celebrity users, a mysterious company and a stampede of public interest.

Here’s the rundown of FaceApp’s 15 minutes of fame: A viral app lets us see what we might look like as a wrinkle-laden 75-year-old. Users click “yes” on the terms of service without looking, and start snapping and uploading pictures. More [HERE]

Piccadilly Circus billboard uses recognition technology to deliver targeted adverts

We already knew this was happening but a reminder is always a good idea.

VIA: Dezeen

A new digital billboard in London's Piccadilly Circus uses recognition technology to display targeted advertisements based on the make of passing cars, and the gender and age of pedestrians. More [HERE]

Smart cities are boring. Give us responsive cities.

It is Tuesday morning in Brussels and I am starting the install of my show at Harlan Levey Projects today. Before I get going on that I read an interesting article sent to me and written by the CTO of a large outdoor advertising and digital infrastructure firm. I have been pitching them a very public use of the infrastructure that he created in the hopes of creating a truly democratic open platform on an outdoor advertising network. I know, I know. Working with the enemy. In some ways yes, and in some ways trying out new ideas that would create the language needed to demand an ad free space that would be required of an open public visual environment. I'll keep you posted and be open with my endeavors cause honesty is the best policy and I am a sucker for criticism, be it my own, or someone else's.

My work has increasingly begun to happen in the digital space, or at least the thinking I am forced to do as digital advertising and the ramifications of digital infrastructure make thier way through the outdoor advertising world. Beyond hacking a digital kiosk, how does one deal with this new infrastructure as an activist? Is there some aspect of digital infrastructure that might provide the kinds of opportunities I seek to replace outdoor advertising? Can digital infrastructure be a shared civic resource in a way that the old billboard could not? I think so, although getting the companies who own these public infrastructures to share them as if they were truly public is a big ask, there are opportunities to do just that around the corner. My interest is ultimately in breaking the stranglehold on public space communication that advertising has tightened over the years so that a renewed democratic civic discourse can take its place and there is something uniquely democratic about a digital screen that can alternate content and provide larger populations with a voice where traditional print media could not.

VIA: Tech Crunch

As an urban technologist, I’m often asked to give an example of a compelling smart city application that real people are using. But to be honest, there really isn’t too much to point to – yet. Cities may be getting smarter, but they haven’t noticeably changed from a user perspective. More [HERE]

Ephemeral -- spreading the word!

Lisa Sedano has launched Ephemeral, a mobil app for crowd sourced data collection on advertising and art in LA. One of the main hurdles to public space reform is a lack of understanding about what types of images are priviledged in public space, our personal stake and ownership in our shared environment, and general lack of political participation. Ephemeral seems to engage all three of these issues in an effort to create a public with a more nuanced understanding of the shared environment around them. It's an exciting project and if you are so inclined, donate a few bucks to help make it a reality. [HERE]

Dear friends,

I am excited to announce Ephemeral, a mobile app will let people share pictures of street art and outdoor advertising, creating a collective map and visual archive of the urban landscape. Ephemeral asks community residents to open their eyes to how much outdoor advertising surrounds us and to notice the art that is fighting for space and bringing unique and unexpected moments of creativity to urban life.

Ephemeral builds off my graduate work in geography, for which I designed a website that let people map billboards in Los Angeles. At the time, the city had an inventory of billboards, but was refusing to release it publicly under political pressure from advertisers. I created a crowdsourced webmap of billboards, believing that the community could create what money and politics had stopped the city from doing (and I sued the city to release the inventory!).

For many people, billboards are just “what a city looks like.” Street artists offer a counter-narrative to the corporatized city, directly engaging with consumer society in their work. Artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey have brought attention to street art – to the power of provocative, surprising, creative expression in public space. The aim of Ephemeral is to preserve all types of transitory art in the public realm, from wheatpaste posters, to murals, to hijacked billboards, to hand-knit cozies on objects of infrastructure, as well as the advertising that we take for granted.

Ephemeral will be free to download and use, to truly harness the power of the community, but right now, it needs your help to come to fruition! I would be so grateful if you could visit the Kickstarter page at http://kck.st/2oC6F56, offer any support you can (there’s a slew of neat rewards to collect, starting at donations of $1), and share the project with your friends.

Any support you can offer is incredibly important and sincerely appreciated. And please let me know what you think! I would love to hear from you.

Best,
Lisa
@ephemeral_app

May All Your Time Be Screen Time!

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

Aiming to Disrupt Ads in New York City, Artworks Instead Blend In

My criticism of this project was announced by my questioning of the curators at a recent panel at the New School in NYC. Basically I was concerned that this type of project, while attempting to disrupt the ad cycle that so clearly has a strangle hold on our collective attention in public space, only further institutionalizes the infrastructure through which we receive this bombardment into the fabric of our city. What is passed off as critique is actually a deeply disturbing acceptance of our inability to imagine alternative visions of society through art. As if a colorful non-commercial image thrown into an onslaught of commercial media could somehow challenge the medium itself and help us to breath new life into a system that is normalizing consumptive behaviors that are at the heart of social and environmental issues we all face. 

VIA: Hyperallergic

The idea behind Commercial Break — an exhibition produced by Public Art Fund (PAF) of 23 artists’ versions of visual “interruptions within the advertising cycles” on some of New York City’s most public screens — seems like a good one. The artist list is appealingly international, including Cory Arcangel, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Martine Syms, Hayal Pozanti, Cécile B. Evans, Tabor Robak, and Mary Reid Kelley. The project looks to inject an aesthetic time-out into the onslaught of commercial images meant to sell us new and improved versions of ourselves. It’s important that the work is being shown in public, because certainly more than languages, professions, or nationalities, New Yorkers share a familiarity with the discourse of advertising. It is merciless in its attempt to convince viewers of their own lack and of their need to buy their way out of the hole. 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]

New Yorkers Greet the Arrival of Wi-Fi Kiosks With Panic, Skepticism and Relief

VIA: The New York Times

When it comes to acceptance of New York City’s rapidly growing network of sidewalk kiosks offering “free super fast Wi-Fi,” some people are Nekeya Browns and some are Alex Padillas. More [HERE]

Highway Billboard Hijacked with Candy Penis-Licking Rubio Photoshops

VIA: Gothamist

Our nation is filled with unsecured LED billboards that are hooked up to the internet and can be configured by anyone to show literally any image. Today, one of those billboards showed a doctored photo of Marco Rubio licking a penis lollipop. More [HERE]

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. 

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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.

Baltimore's LED Art Billboard Is Nice, Sort Of

Don't be fooled, they use this billboard for advertising too, it just gets art sometimes as well. Hey it's a step in the right direction...

The Baltimore LED Art Billboard is an advertising billboard, but it is also a digital art display. We have taken a technology typically used for advertising and created a one of a kind digital art gallery. providing local artists incredible exposure to the public…absolutely FREE. Rotated in among the advertising are submitted images of every form of art, from painting, drawing, and illustration, to sculpture, photography, and game design. We welcome submissions from all local artists, student, amateur, and professional alike. After every few ads we will display a piece of art. More [HERE]

Add-Art 2.0 Is Available Now!

Steve Lambert has continued to be an inspiration for me over the years in large part because he has been able to so seamlessly work in a multitude of media. Add-Art is a Firefox Plugin he and a few others developed a while back that removes browser ads and replaces them with curated art content. The plugin just got a reboot that you can download [HERE] or simply visit add-art.org for more information. With the update comes a slightly different, and more participatory format. Image databases are downloadable from curators like Rhizome, PublicAdCampaign, and NASA, but anyone can submit an image set themselves. If approved, that new image set is made available online just like the curated sets. I think it's a wonderful update to the original Add-Art and hope PublicAdCampaign users will not only use the Plugin, but also submit thier own imagery for consideration.

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

Official Re+Public 1.0 Launch

Re+Public: Moto Wall Digital Mural from The Heavy Projects on Vimeo.
To many, the PublicAdCampaign project is about the removal of outdoor advertising from our shared visual environment in an effort to "clean up" our public spaces from the mental pollution caused by outdoor advertising. While I would not argue that is one of the most important aspects of this project, it does not take into account our belief that "cleaning up" does not mean a visual environment devoid of life. To the contrary we see the removal of outdoor advertising as a vital step in the creation of a public environment that promotes public media and visual interaction. 
Some years ago, I met a guy over at the Heavy Projects and we bagan to explore the potential of AR to not only create a more democratic public media space, but also to leap over that vital step of removing outdoor ads by simply replacing them in the new digital public environment. For PublicAdCampaign this new technology gave us visions of an interactive and publicly curated media space where your ability to purchase outdoor space did not determine your ability to produce media there. It is an exciting idea that we simply had to explore. 
Over the past few years we have been working with this new medium and could not be more excited to finally launch our free Re+Public mobile app. Re+Public harnesses this new technology to glimpse at a new digital future for public space and there is much work to be done exploring these concepts further as people become more comfortable with AR and wearables become a part of our everyday lives. Until then, please download the Re+Public app, visit the site, and Like us on facebook so we can continue to explore this incredibly rich new artistic domain.