Reclaim - Artist Initiated Reclamation of Public Space Using Your Money

While I love the idea of reclaiming public space for the artwork and other civic media platforms, I have a hard time with projects like this. Basically the idea is to buy up as much advertising space using crowdfunding and private funds in order to display more appropriate content for our shared public spaces. But why would we pay for something that is inherently ours and somehow has ended up through no fault of our own in the possession of a private corporation? Seems like paying to get your lunch back from the schoolyard bully.

Reclaim is a collective of individuals initiating an award in Cologne that redefines public space as a place for art. From 20th to 30th of September 2019, billboards are rented and made available to artists as their individual exhibition space. [VISIT SITE HERE]

Waiting for a Bus? Time to Enjoy a Taste of Art

While I obviously have an issue with PAF and JCD as the curators of our civic media environment, I am very happy with curator Katerina Stathopoulou's choice for this project. Public space should be used by, and be representative of, the citizens who live in our cities. Elle Perez's work will no doubt bring us a deeply personal group of portraits that reflect our city back at us in all its beauty and nuance.

VIA: The New York Times

This summer, 100 city bus shelters will be transformed into platforms for an exhibition of work by a New York-based photographer, Elle Pérez. More [HERE]

Up-And-Coming Artists Transforming Parts Of SEPTA Subway Stations

VIA: CBS Local Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Every day Philadelphians are bombarded by advertisements. They’re on their phones, TVs and buildings. But would they feel differently if the ad space was actually art space? More [HERE]

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]

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. 

‘Reclaiming public space’: How Philadelphians turned ads into art

I am continually baffled by the fact that we clearly want more public art but we still let corporations set the price for access to use our very own shared public spaces.

VIA: Philly Curbed

Almost two months ago, the ads came.

“300 jeeps cheap!” the words in bright yellow lettering blared from nearly 400 Big Belly trash cans around Center City. It’s followed by a 1-800 number for an auto dealership.

Immediately, Philadelphians took notice. Journalist Stephanie Farr tweeted that the ads looked terrible, journalist Jim MacMillan called them hideous. The words “eye sore” were thrown around on Twitter, and within days one can lay in a melted pile on the ground (though it’s unclear whether that was linked to outrage over the ads).

More [HERE]

‘New York’ magazine covers become public art in citywide installation

The line between art and commerce on our streets has become so blurred that a New York magazine "Wildposting" campaign can be pitched as a public art program. Wildposting is illegal advertising, or graffiti by another name. When someone wild posts on your property, the image below shows what you have to do in order to avoid fines from the city. I'm not saying I want NY magazine to stop, but I am saying that we need to reevaluate what constitutes proper use of public space and who gets access and who does not.

VIA: Curbed NYC

In honor of New York Magazine’s 50th anniversary, the publication is launching a year-long exhibit showcasing specially-designed New York covers by 50 renowned artists, called simply “A Public Art Project.” More [HERE]

Collisions Exhibition June 15th 6-9PM Openwalls Gallery

I am very happy to announce that I will be exhibiting the entire Collisions series on June 15th at Openwalls Gallery in Berlin. This ongoing series has been in the making for the past 2 years and includes 15 photographs, each with an augmented reality component. Along side the photographs there will be a small a small amount of ephemera and a beautifully conceived essay by Thomas Dekeyser. Please join us between 6-9pm for the opening reception.

 Collisions: Underground, 2016

 Collisions: Carry On, 2017

Billboard-sized portraits of ordinary people have Providence residents talking.

I cannot say how much I love and believe in this project. It only happens that the artist teaches at my Alma Mater and the project is happening in Providence Rhode Island. 

VIA: Upworthy

A mechanic named Fernando was thrilled when he got a call that his picture had been blown up and installed on the side of a building.

He wasn't a fashion model or trying to sell anything. He was a mechanic shop owner from Guatemala living in Providence, Rhode Island, and this was all very new to him. It's not every day you see yourself on the side of a building looking out over a busy downtown.More [HERE]

Where's the Boundary Between Public Art and Advertising?

VIA: City Lab

The Fearless Girl and Charging Bull statues have been facing off in Manhattan’s financial district since March 8. The optics are still startling: a girl, fists on her hips, ponytail swaying, stares down a 7,100-pound bull, which stands 11 feet tall and 16 feet long in the heart of one of the world’s most powerful economic centers. More [HERE]

Everybody Paintings Get 4 NYC Locations

Lamar has been donating/selling space to the Everybody billboard project. I honestly cant tell what is up and what is down anymore. I know for a fact that the people who run most billboard companies are not bad people. I also know that they are not in the business of creating democratic artistic platforms for expression. Often the explanation for why a piece of art showed up on a billboard is less "we thought some art would be nice" and more "we had some extra space so why let it go to waste and make our clientele think we cant keep our inventory rented." Right now I am too tied up with other things to sleuth on this project so you can judge for yourself. More [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]

No Free Walls Documentary

A few months ago I was given the chance to comment on the visual gentrification that has been transforming Bushwick for some years for a documentary called No Free Walls that just came out. In addition to the on camera interview, I did a little phone conversation a few days ago for the Complex website. Take a look below. 

Watch the full documentary [HERE] Read the whole interview [HERE]

All the ads in this London subway station are gone ... and replaced with cats

When you pay the advertising company to replace ads with art or other public messaging you are reinforcing the belief that public space should be bought and sold to the highest bidder. I love this idea but I hate that it doesn't demand more.

VIA: CNN

If your dog travels with you, it might be better to avoid Clapham Common Tube station for the next couple of weeks. More [HERE]

The Art Conference #01

I just got back from London where Tina Ziegler held the first TAC (The Art Conference) in a beautiful old factory venue called the Ugly Duck. I was asked to open two days of pretty intense talks about Art, Technology, and social engagement. I took the task seriously and used my work to show how advertising, as one of the sub genre's of cultural production systems, undermines social progress by monopolizing the systems of dissemination, prohibiting access and participation, economically driving technological determinism, and framing our cultural values in frighteningly self serving ways. It all went pretty well despite not having a podium to put my papers on. Given the chance to do it again I plan to do a little more memorization, and to attempt to go beyond advertising to Art itself, which has its own way of slowing social progress in ways which are similar to advertising itself. 

Notable speakers from the conference were RJ Rushmore who's talk From Dissidence to Decorative derided projects like Urban Nation as decorative city wallpaper intent on raising property value more than providing any of the real radical politics once prescribed to street art. As a nice opposition to that, Teresa Latuszewska spoke about the Urban Forms mural project in Lodz Poland which is a sanctioned mural project but one that works hard to reach out to the community and integrate itself deep into the skin of the city. They have also done some pretty boring and thankless work gathering hard statistics on peoples feelings towards the individual murals and the culture in general. Mia Grundahl spoke about Women on Walls which I knew little about and which practically brought me to tears. To say that these projects proved RJ's point would be an understatement. 

Similarly heartbreaking and inspirational was the work of Robert Montgomery whose texts can often be found on the street where advertising once broadcast its messages loudly. Robert has taken over billboards illegally, but he has also worked directly with the OOH companies to place his work. At first I was upset that he would collaborate with the enemy, but after speaking with him and hearing him talk, I realized that my radical politics was less important to him than ensuring there was an alternative voice to the aggressive commercial megaphone we are often confronted with on a daily basis. His writing, a sort of haunting conversation with the city and capitalism, draws a beautiful contrast that works to undermine consumerist propaganda. While I surely like his illegal pieces better, I cannot say that the sanctioned pieces are less effective to someone who doesn't know the politics behind anti ad activity. And finally Dan Witz took me on a nostalgic trip back to his earliest work that began in 1978 a year before I was born. That guy has been doing groundbreaking street art before the term was coined, hell even before graf made its mark. A true pioneer. 

All in all it was a fantastic event and I look forward to the next. If you have an opportunity to visit one yourself, I highly suggest taking the time. 

A quick installation on Commercial street, London

 The incredible force behind TAC01 Tina Ziegler

 The crowd at the first TAC

 Talking to Dan Witz about staying the course and privilege

Robert Montgomery

Speaking about how advertising undermines social progress

Speaking about how advertising undermines social progress

Ad-free art on the underground: Düsseldorf's 'pure' new metro line

These days, our public spaces are thought of as opportunities to tap into the vast wealth of attention that we collectively possess as we move through our shared environments. Typically that attention is directed towards advertising and our thoughts are asked to ruminate on our relationship to the automobile we drive, the type of detergent we wash our clothes in, or the entertainment we will use to pass the hours post dinner and pre sleep. Public space as a vehicle to promote conspicuous consumption, and this demand of our attention for specified motivations can leave us feeling intruded upon, taken advantage of, or manipulated. It makes sense because this is precisely what is happening, although we might not couch it in such terms, having become so comfortable with advertising's ever presence in our lives, and particularly in our public. The truth of the matter is we are being used when we step out of the house and that is no way to be treated in a space which is at least partially your own.

The recent opening of several new train stations in Dusseldorf, Germany seems to deeply understand this idea, as well as the power of art to expand ones attention as opposed to focusing it singularly.

"What is perhaps most inspiring about the project is how the lack of adverts means people can be people, and not consumers. Klussmann says: “Art is often used to attract people to buy things.” But here it is just about the art and the space, and wherever your imagination takes you. "

This notion reminded me of an obvious little piece of advice that in the digital age we fail to recognize and surely follow. Our minds need, in fact thrive on down time, those moments in between when our attention is unfocused and our thoughts drift. It is in these moments of drift that my mind makes new connections and novel thoughts bubble up to the surface without prompting. In the age of smartphones, we are woefully inept at allowing ourselves these moments of drift as we incessantly check Facebook, Instagram, Feedly, or some other constantly updating source of attention fodder attempting to fill those down moments.

Public space treated correctly can allow our minds the space to drift, or it can be used as a vehicle to distract us and keep our minds mulling over the minutia of capitalism. It seems like we should demand the later as it is in our best interest, and yet a newly minted subway system like this one in Dusseldorf is a noteworthy anomaly.

VIA: The Gaurdian

It was an unusual project,” says Berlin-based artist Heike Klussmann, a lead designer of the new U-Bahn line, which opens on Saturday in the German city of Düsseldorf. Fifteen years in the making, the Wehrhahn metro line consists of six new stations running east to west beneath the city centre, collaboratively designed by architects, artists and engineers. “Normally the construction part happens first and then the artists are commissioned. Here the architects, artists and engineers worked together from the beginning,” she says. More [HERE]

Image of the Stockholm subway as another example of Germany's progressive use of thier public spaces.

These Crazy Bastards Have Too Much Fun

I can’t help myself...Who cares? from Epos 257 on Vimeo.

Augmented Reality and New Gallery Works

The works presented below should also be viewed with a free augmented reality app, PublicAdCampaign Now! downloadable for Android [HERE]. 

I have been working on a new series of gallery pieces that focus on my long term struggle to take back outdoor advertising spaces without imposing my own aesthetics on the public or running an ad campaign for myself, while at the same time making visible my tactics in the hopes of promoting similar behavior in others. I do this to ask whether or not we should adorn our cities with commercial messages in light of the many other types of visual stimulus we could offer ourselves, and with the understanding that advertising in general has a net negative effect on our personal psychology and thus our global behavior as a species. 

These works are as close as I think I have come to reaching that goal for a number of reasons. First, while people who are familiar with my work may look at these installations and assume it was me, I think thier utter simplicity anonymizes my actions and prevents the installation from being promotional. If you don't know who made the piece, you cant think about the person behind it and therefore must instead have a relationship to the image alone. That said, you must notice the installation in the first place and I think the striking difference between the imagery used for this series, and advertising, helps to create that initial interaction. 

So now we have someone looking at an anonymous installation that removed an advertisement for some unknown reason. This is the space I want the viewer to end up, as it allows them to begin the conversation with themselves about the difference between the two types of imagery, advertisings ubiquity and role in our public spaces, and all of the other questions we should be asking ourselves when thinking about how we want our public visual environment to be used. Given the opportunity to disassociate these physical locations with thier expected advertising content, viewers are free to enter a line of thinking that is almost unheard of... "Should we have, and do we need, outdoor advertising intruding on our public spaces and minds? 

While the initial performative aspect of these pieces works on the public viewer, these images are ultimately meant to hang in a gallery context, potentially loosing the credibility, and directness of the illegal physical takeover that is the proof of my ambitions. After all, these images are very clearly composites, a single moment created by compiling many hours of patient waiting into a single frame. If the images have gone through photoshop, what prevents the actual installation from being a fraud, and the proposed argument that the document depicts undeserving of our attention.

For this, the final element of AR, and the PublicAdCampaign Now! app come in to tell the rest of the story. Video of me actually installing the piece which is to become the image you are looking at in the gallery plays over the still image when viewed through the app, proving the aesthetics to be in service of the idea and the work to be sincere. Once this sincerity is established, I think the gallery viewer can come to a similar thought trajectory as the public viewer and honestly consider the proposed argument that is established by me actively breaking the law to remove commercial media and replace it with something else, whatever that might be.

Banksy's Dismaland: 'amusements and anarchism' in artist’s biggest project yet

Oh the missed opportunities. Banksy recently opened a theme park with a decidedly twisted facade. While its all fun and games ridicule of mass spectacle culture, there is a wonderfully anarchistic prize to be taken home in lieu of the shitty stuffed animals that one usually wanders away with at these things. For 5 Pounds you can get an Adshel bus shelter key and presumably a little walkthrough on how to use it. 

In one tent would-be anarchists can find out how to unlock the Adshel posters seen at bus stops. For £5 people can buy the tools to break into them, replacing the official posters with any propaganda they please. Is it legal? “It’s not illegal,” said the vendor.

We couldn't agree more. If you want keys of your own, try this LINK

VIA: The Guardian

He describes it as a “family theme park unsuitable for small children” – and with the Grim Reaper whooping it up on the dodgems and Cinderella horribly mangled in a pumpkin carriage crash, it is easy to see why. More [HERE]

Can cities kick ads? Inside the global movement to ban urban billboards

My friend Dennis over at Ban Billboard Blight sent me this article from the Guardian. Many of the issues that I find most interesting about advertising and public space are addressed in the article, if only briefly. It is after all a short news story. I was particularly happy with fact that the author addresses the tone of the OOH industry towards thier occupation of our public environment, and what that means about thier overall goals and appreciation for the public to which they subject thier business. 

And then there is the mention of a Zadie Smith essay in the NY Review of Books, which all of my smart friends failed to alert me of. I guess all of thier constant pressure to subscribe was not only well intended, but also a good idea. 

VIA: The Guardian

Something seemed strange. Staring out of a hotel window in São Paulo, my eye was caught by an oversized digital display crowning the top of an undersized skyscraper. Steadily flashing the time, then the temperature, the display was incongruous in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. More [HERE]