Cultural Hijack Website

If you don't already know about the website Cultural Hijack, it's well worth taking a look at some of the projects and artists they highlight. Some ad takeover work, but also an assortment of other relevant projects.

The Art Conference Speaker

I am pleased to announce my participation in The Art Conference coming up in late July at the Ugly Duck in London. Billed as the first of many, TAC#01 is focused on the evolution of Street Art. I will be speaking about my practice, the role of advertising on our collective psyche, and how we might use art to further our visions of utopia beyond the gallery walls. In addition to the talk I will be giving, I am also going to exhibit a few images from the Collisions series along with some of the PublicAccess keys and video.

I am excited to be a part of the event as there are a handful of incredible artists and thinkers I have worked with in the past, as well as others that I look forward to meeting at the event. If you are in London July 23rd and 24th, make sure to get yourself a ticket and join us for what will be an interesting two days of thoughtful discussion. Find out more and register [Here]

Artist Talk with +Art at Judson Memorial Church July 17th

I was asked to give a short artist talk on my work as artist/activist, this upcoming Thursday July 17th. If you are in NYC, stop by the Judson Memorial church and say hello. There are several wonderfully interesting speakers and +Art's non-profit goals of engaging serious social issues through artistic interventions is a worthwhile cause to support.

Check the Facebook page [HERE]
Also a link to the speaker information on More Art's webpage: [HERE]

UC Berkely Class Talk and San Francisco/Oakland Bus Shelter Access

Me and the UC Berkeley students in front of a takeover in Oakland, CA. 2014

At the end of April I was in Oakland visiting a group of students at UC Berkeley California. The students were wrapping up a seminar class on the philosophy of street art taught by an old high school friend of mine, Seth Yalcin. I haven't spoke to Seth since high school and he found my work when he was forced to watch This Space Available on a leg of his flight home. The documentary was a larger investigation of outdoor advertising's role in public space and the various actors that fall on every side of the debate. I guess his interest was peaked and shortly thereafter he got in touch about putting together a syllabus. 

Students seemed to come from a few different disciplines, including urban planning and development, which I was happy to see. We spoke for about an hour in class and then went out to the streets for a quick little action. I absolutely love teaching and working with students of all ages. The energy and enthusiasm, in most students, is infectious. 

Market Street, San Francisco 2014

While I was in Oakland I made sure to get out in San Francisco to test some of the infrastructure there and see what was accessible. There are a plethora of bus shelter and free standing advertising frames littered throughout the city operated by Clear Channel. It didn't take long before two trips to the hardware store had fashioned the elusive 5 sided tamper proof bit that is required to open most of these structures. 

Hand crafted tool for San Francisco Clear Channel advertising

Mission Street public restroom 2014

While in San Francisco, I noticed that JCDecaux operates the public restrooms sporadically strewn around Bart Station entrances. I carry all of my keys with me on my travels so I quickly replaced this advertisement to show that I could. Slowly an archive of keys is building which will be put online in the coming months as the PublicAccess project.

Mission Street public restroom 2014

Mission Street public restroom 2014

Recent LA Bus Shelter Takeovers and Panel Discussion

LA Bus Shelter Takeover 2014

Over a month ago I spoke to a group of urban planners, outdoor advertising executives, and concerned Los Angeles residents at a Westside Urban Forum panel titled, "Art and Billboards: What do we want the City of Los Angeles to look like?" I was invited to this discussion by Dennis Hathaway of Ban Billboard Blight, who has become a friend and colleague that I have kept in touch with over the years. It was an opportunity to espouse some of my more "radical" views on how public space should be used, to a group of people who might not normally think about the issue the way I do. This meant going beyond the typical arguments of legality, zoning, and blight that are normally associated with the outdoor advertising debate, to the more pressing question of how is all of this commercial signage effecting our social psyche. 

Inevitably the fact that there could be a fundamental problem with using public space for commercial signage was lost on part of the crowd. People within the outdoor advertising industry obviously have a hard time listening to a model of public space that would eradicate the very business that they work for. That said the audience in general was receptive to the idea that there may be a problem with surrounding ourselves with a repetitive demand to consume at an ever increasing pace, and that public space and the health of our cities might be fundamentally at odds with the type of behavior that outdoor advertising promotes. 

It was an interesting discussion and one I was happy to see the citizens of Los Angeles engaging head on. If only we did this more often and the issue did not seem to be a demand of the "educated media literate class" but rather the concern of every city inhabitant with an interest in retaining a modicum of self determination.

LA Bus Shelter Takeover 2014

BriCollab Presents: Contrasting Enterprises: Outdoor Advertising and Public Spaces

A screening of the documentary, This Space Available, followed by a discussion.

Common in an urban setting, outdoor advertising dominate public spaces. Municipalities generate revenue from advertising agencies erecting large, high production value, mainstream messages. In confronting the nature and prominence of this industry and cultivation of cityscapes, there are complex issues of economics, urban development, public space, aesthetics, and availability of resources within a community to express them.

This Space Available is a documentary that confronts these issues. Inspired by Rio de Janeiro municipal decision to strip all the billboards from one of Brazil's largest cities, director Gwenaëlle Gobé, investigated worldwide, looking how billboard industry impacts various cities. She connected with powerful members of the advertising industry as well as guerrilla street artist groups in order to grapple with the question, who is the public space for and who can express there? She catalogs the efforts and statistics of the advertising industry while showcasing the oppositional efforts that seek to reduce the amount of outdoor advertising in cities. The conversation at The New School with faculty Andy Berhiemer (Parsons The New School for Design), Victoria Marshall (Parsons The New School for Design), and Shoshanah Goldberg Miller (The New School for Public Engagement) discuss the contrast between commercial and public spaces with the idea that it is possible to traverse encounters between people as mediated through architecture, design, and municipal policies.

Sponsored by the BriCollab project in the School of Media Studies.

International Conference of Critical Geography 6

I am honored to be talking on behalf of PublicAdCampaign and the Heavy Projects at the 6th International Conference of Critical Geography today, August 17th. I will be presenting a paper written by BC Biermann that I helped conceive, and which focuses on the use of Augmented Reality in the reappropriation of public space. While the discussion will focus on AR's ability to democratize media production in our shared environment, it will also touch on the history of PublicAdCampaign and the 10 years of physical alterations we have done.

Literally sitting outside on a wooden bench typing this, I am excited to explore Frankfurt and see if I can find a store that sells black and white paper. While there are few ads here, there are enough for me to get involved and physically reclaim some outdoor commercial media after discussing how to virtually do the same.

Read AR I AD Takeover: Augmented Reality and the Reappropriation of Public Space [Here]

PublicAdCampaign Presentation at Flux Factory's Hackposium This Saturday

This Saturday I will be giving a presentation on public media curation at the Flux Factory Hackposium. It should be a smashing good time for inquisitive minds. Please feel free to stop by and enjoy a snack while you learn the fine art of alternative public space usage.

Date: Saturday, July 2, 2011
Time: 4 pm – on

This day-long event explores the practical, philosophical, and playful applications of the term “hacking.” Presentations and workshops will cover topics such as circuit bending, culture jamming, dumpster diving, email encryption, and the repurposing of waste items into useful tools. The symposium is geared towards providing visitors with foundational information in order to become hackers themselves. Hackposiumis part of Flux Factory’s Summer School program and is curated by Jaime Iglehart via New Age Beverages, in collaboration with Pete Edwards of Casper Electronics.

Demos of hacked objects and freegan snacks start at 4pm.
Talks and presentations start at 6 pm, and are followed by musical performances.

Street Communications Workshop and Panel Discussion Results

Saturday, April 9th I was at Haverford college doing a workshop with 12 students as well as speaking on a panel with Gaia, and Marc and Sara Schiller of the Wooster Collective. The topic, Street Communications: Art and Advertising in Public Spaces. When RJ Rushmore from Vandalog and a student at Haverford, first spoke to me about the panel he had suggested running a workshop as a way to engage the student body. I was obviously excited about this opportunity but knew that what constituted a workshop for me was an illegal ad takeover to others and potentially to the college which had invited me to speak. After a lengthy discussion, RJ and I decided to move forward despite the potential issues that might arise, both of us knowing full well that the most explicit example of public space interaction is the one where you get your hands dirty.

The workshop was scheduled for 3-4 hours which is a lot less time than one would think. I decided that prepping 12 posters to fit 12 railway advertisements was a good idea to save time while providing an interesting surface for students to work with. We began by talking a bit about public space and its ability to illuminate issues about our social structure. We talked about advertising's use of the public environment and how that use reflected a specific agenda, and not necessarily one which had the broadest appeal. This lasted for close to an hour at which point we had to get to work.

Each student was given their own blank poster on which they stenciled simple sentences hopefully inspired by our previous conversation. After the recent MaSAT project, I have come around to the power and simplicity of text, particularly in the ad takeover format. The students seemed to embrace the text as well, all of us enjoying an hour of stenciling outside in the beautiful, if not slightly windy weather.

At this point all that was left was the installation. As a group we set out towards the first of two train stations that our 12 posters would takeover. While removing advertising on this rural Pennsylvania line wasn't dangerous in the way it may be in a major metropolitan city, the act itself is subversive enough to get your heart going if only a few more beats a minute. Everyone, installing their own posters, were given an opportunity to cross invisible boundaries in public space. This act, however small it might seem can be profound and open up a world of interaction and participation that can change your relationship to not only the space, but to the people that surround you. After taking a picture of the entire group standing in front of one of their newly adorned locations that read "You can touch" I thought to myself…That was a successful workshop.

Street Communications - Artists and Advertisers on the Street

On April 9th I will be giving a small workshop that will coincide with a panel discussion on visual public space use. I am honored to be on a panel with Gaia, and Marc and Sara Schiller to discuss this broad but important topic. If you are around and can make the talk, or workshop for that matter, please come by.

Urban Geography With the Royal Holloway University of London

I have been doing a bit of talking these days, most recently at the Southern Graphics Council in Saint Louis and today with Geography students from the Royal Holloway University of London. We had planned a long walk from City Hall to the Lower East side, but rain and cold winds caused us to retreat back to my studio. Normally I use this walk to talk about the different affects of the visual environment on spatial control and environmental issues but today, in the studio, the conversation focused more on PublicAdCamapaign actions and other street art/urban art projects. As per usual, the most important teaching tool I have found is action, and the phonebooth install above was done to show the students how simple public space interaction can be.

Tune In Tonight! Radio Provocateur Interview

Tune in tonight for PublicAdCampaign's second appearance on Radio Provocateur. This weekly hour long radio broadcast, brought to you by Danny Valdes, highlights radical politics and activist agendas. We will be speaking about what has happened with PublicAdCampaign over the last year and what we have in store for 2011.

PERFORMANCE/LECTURE FOR “FREE” AT NEW MUSEUM SAT. 11/6 3PM

I don't often post things that don't relate directly to outdoor advertising but I'm making an exception. Steve Lambert, founder of the Anti-Advertising Agency, friend, and one of a few personal heroes, will be giving a free lecture at the New Museum this Saturday. While I will still be in Philadelphia, I highly suggest that you attend. Not only is Steve an incredibly intelligent and articulate speaker, he's freaking hilarious. This talk/Walking tour is sure to be a great way to spend your saturday afternoon.

Disobedience + Innovation: Inspiring Change

I will be a part of a panel discussion on disobedience and innovation at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center this October 28th. Please come by to engage what will surely be a lively discussion and investigation of the benefits and pitfalls of progressive civil disobedience.

In collaboration with Emerging Leaders of New York Arts, Eyebeam has invited Katyal and a group of artists, innovators, writers, and activists to discuss their views on the relationship between forms of civil disobedience and innovation. Some questions we’re asking are: What role does disobedience play in inducing innovation, and who lives in the grey areas of the law? Is innovation always a social practice? What makes an initiative successful - is it larger systemic change or policy change? Broader awareness? Hits? Links? Reblogs/tweets? How does financial viability come into play when looking toward innovation? What about productivity, innovation, and the arts--how can some forms of disobedience play a role in furthering creativity?

Moderator:
Stephen Dumcombe, Associate Professor at New York University; author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy; editor, Cultural Resistance Reader

Discussants:
• Sonia K. Katyal, Professor of Law at Fordham Law School
• Brooke Singer, Eyebeam Fellow; Media Artist & Associate Professor of New Media at Purchase College, State University of New York
• Jordan Seiler, founder of PublicAdCampaign
• Fred Benenson, Digital Activist / Artist / etc; R&D, Kickstarter

Tentative bonus guest:
• Andrew Boyd, Chairman of the Blurb, Agit-Pop Communications; Co-Founder, The Other 98%; Founder, Billionaires for Bush; Troublemaker@Large, Planet Earth

REGISTER: http://bit.ly/Oct28cc

Living Walls the City Peaks: Kick Starter Funding

If you have anything you can give to this Kick Starter funding campaign please seriously consider a donation. The organizers of this conference truly have Atlanta in their hearts and have dedicated themselves to investigating ways in which to give voice to the city through what is shaping up to be an incredible lecture series as well as inside and outside gallery exhibition.

Living Walls is an Endless Canvas sponsored exhibition and conference focused on street art and its role in engaging public space.

We are bringing in the works of an international selection of artists who typically make use of the streets to showcase their work. We have also sought artists that re-appropriate the public realm, attempting to take charge of their media space.

Artists will be asked, along with submitting artwork, to present some form of documentation of their other works as well as their process in order to illustrate via pictures, video, sketches, words, etc, the scale and context in which the artist typically works in public space.

Logistics:
First in order to understand why we need to raise funds let us provide you with more specific logistical information regarding our project.

The project will be divided into three components: a component devoted to public murals involving poster art, a lecture series which the Georgia Tech architecture department has agree to host for us, and a that of a gallery opening taking place at the Eyedrum. The poster art show will precede all other events the prior to August 13, 2010. On Friday August 13th, the event will consist of a lecture series held at Georgia Tech. On Saturday August 14th, the event will consist of an exhibition and Pecha Kucha-style presentations held at Eyedrum. The gallery exhibition will be on display in Eyedrum’s galleries from August 13 through the end of September and will commemorate the various public walls around the city blanketed by the wheat pastes.

Poster show:

Inspired and aligned with the open source and free culture movement, driving many poster art (wheat pasting) shows that have happened internationally: Benevento, Turin, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, etc. These other poster art shows have been pieced together by colleagues of the curators of the Living Walls conference. The intentions behind our show are aligned with the same set of values. This alignment has embedded us in a network of street artists who willingly support our efforts. Thus we know there is a critical mass of street artists engaged in poster art all over Europe and South America willing to answer an open call to submit to our show. Along with all this we have three artists contributing to our event who have agreed to act as our liaisons over seas in Berlin, Brazil and Australia. Our liaisons have agreed to collect submissions from around the world and ship posters from over seas to us. An open call for artists will soon be put out asking for poster submissions. These posters will be wheat pasted blanketing a few public walls around Atlanta which we have gained permission for. All these public works will be thoroughly documented for display within the gallery component.

Lecture series:

We are very thankful to the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech who have agreed to support this conference through hosting a lecture series and providing space for other activities. We intend to have a series of lectures the day before the gallery show in order to promote the gallery show itself as well as to engage and inform a different audience that would otherwise not attend the gallery show.

Gallery show:
Select artists, along with contributing to the poster show, will display their work within eyedrum. All artist are asked present some kind of documentation regarding their specific artistic process. This documentation itself will be on display within the gallery and is intended to illustrate all that is entailed in the act of making street art. Also on display will be the documentation of the prior week’s events, the wheat pasting of the submitted posters. On the opening day of the gallery show we will have a pecha kucha* like event, where selected artist and lecturers will present 20 slides. Each slide will be displayed for 20 seconds, yielding a total presentation of about 7 min in length. The pace of these presentations has a unique way engaging an audience with an entertaining, yet informative slew of ideas.

Project location: Atlanta, GA

Resisting Enclosure: The Privatization of Public Space-Workshop Install

I was involved in a panel discussion this morning at the CUNY grad center in NY entitled Resisting Enclosure. After speaking about the PublicAdCampaign project along with the three other artists including one of my favorites, Jeff Stark, we broke off into workshop groups. I spoke about the tools of the trade and then went out to show the group how simple producing your own public media can be. The most important piece of information I can impart to people is how permeable the boundary between public and private can be. The book piece was put up in front of the group, the weave was produced later in the day and installed on my own.

Resisting Enclosure: The Privatization of Public Space?

I couldn't be happier about PublicAdCampaign's involvement in the upcoming Resisting Enclosure conference at The CUNY Grad Center in New York this thursday the 22nd. Ill be on a panel the second day with 3 other amazing artists and activists to discuss resistance strategies in the public sphere. We will be conducting some workshops afterwards to get people involved and answer any questions you might have about how to implement resistance strategies. This discussion is open to the public so please come down and get involved!

If you think you will attend, please RSVP to resistingenclosure@riseup.net.

SuperFront Panel Discussion-DIY Public Space Makers 4/10 4pm

If you are around, come out this saturday to SuperFront at 1432 Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn to hear a panel discussion on DIY public space making. I will be on the panel as well as running a small workshop on how to create your own phone booth content.

As a part of the Brooklyn-Arts Council funded Cypher on Urban Affairs program at SUPERFRONT this spring, we are hosting a multimedia discussion on Do-It-Yourself Public Space Making. The panel is second in a series that leads up to the construction of a public space in the backyard of the gallery. [More Here]

Print in the Public Sphere-Artist Talk at Tyler School of Art

If you are in Philidelphia this Thursday April 8th, come to Temple University for a discussion of print in the public sphere. Both Swoon and I will talk about our personal projects, which will be followed by a discussion led by Sheryl Conkelton on print in public space.

Sheryl Conkelton is an independent curator based in Philadelphia. A member of the curatorial team that organized the key exhibitions for Philagrafika 2010, she has held senior curating positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Henry Art Gallery and, most recently, was Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at Tyler School of Art.