A new project by the Anti-Advertising Agency with Graffiti Research Lab.
Advertising is the vandalism of the Fortune 500.
And despite that, we still don’t like it.
Between October 2006 and December 2006, the City of New York has removed or obscured 59 illegal banners on sidewalk sheds. In that same period, Chase was forced to remove all illegal sidewalk projections at branches around Manhattan. And now, years into NYC’s crackdown on graffiti writers and protesters, after we’ve watched our friends be detained, arrested, beat, fined, tried, and given real jail sentences, not a single corporate toy from any ad firm has had to do any time.
This could mean only one thing. They’ve called off the law. Open City. Let’s all get to work.
This is the first collaboration between the Anti-Advertising Agency and Graffiti Research Lab. Modified from Ji Lee’s Abstractor TV. We used black foam core ($10/sheet) cut with a laser cutter – however, this project can be done with an x-acto blade, black construction paper, and duct tape for next to nothing. It can be repeated using any backlit display – bus shelters, display ads, television store windows… dream big, act now.
Download 1024 x 768 animated gif below: NYC’s TRUE GRAFFITI PROBLEM GRAFFITI GRAFFITI = ADVERTISING
For for more sneaky flicks click here
Eyebeam R&D Open Lab…Be healed! Track By Ratatat.
Build on it, like: The Pixelator
38 Comments
Um, the link to the AM New York article is about CHASE bank’s illegal sidewalk projections – not Citibank, as stated in the text of this article.
Thanks for the heads up on Chase. It’s been corrected.
Amen. That’s awesome! Great idea and execution.
Great work.
What is the music in the video?
The music is Ratatat (credit above).
Great project nice work!
Dont you find it ironic by calling attention to so called graffiti you actively create your own to replace it. I do however not disagree with you. Graffiti by definition is artwork in public on public property. And I think it’s limiting to say that it’s made with chalk or spray paint. If someone in building a blasted a giant motion video through the use of a projector on building b isn’t that a form of grafiti? I think so. I bet the cops would too…
graf·fi·ti (used with a plural verb) markings, as initials, slogans, or drawings, written, spray-painted, or sketched on a sidewalk, wall of a building or public restroom, or the like
Great work, Steve. Have posted a link on my site which will no doubt drive MILLIONS of visitors. Heh. Call me when you’re headed my way or to L.A. as I’m taking over Kasey’s Venice apt. while she’s in Sydney (til June).
It’s great that someone is trying to do something about all these horrible ads that we are forced to look at every day. I used to live in Manhattan, but I couldn’t take how fake everything was becoming. It was starting to feel like being in hell. I hope you guys are also involved with Adbusters – they could help you build an army of anti-advertisers.
I like the overall approach, but I have one concern. Graffiti to me can be a positive thing, unlike advertising, which is capitalist indoctrination. Now, some graffiti, like tired ass tagging (no glass houses, I used to tag), is boring and the individual version of Nike’s wallpapering of the swoosh. I think that there should be an argument for smarter stuff but I think that saying that shit like “NY’s true graffiti problem” and “graffiti equals advertising” both reinforces the meme that graffiti is a bad thing and falsely equates two very different things. Maybe this is just version one and I still like the sentiment, but for all its merits, I think it deserves a slightly better execution.
Sam, you have a good point. While writers and artists may have a more nuanced definition of the words graffiti and vandalism, we knew when we put a sign in a place like Union Square that we were speaking to a broader audience – not to mention using four words and less. You and I may think of graffiti as any number of things, including an art form or passionate attempts to actively participate in public spaces dominated by commercial advertising, but unfortunately, as a great writer once said, “All [they] see is… crime in the streets.” Perhaps another campaign could work to better educate a public that equates garffiti with vandalism. This is version one of this project and there are more sign ideas bouncing around in our heads. But more importantly, we don’t need to be the ones to put the message out. These are inexpensive, open source tools. Each sheet of foam core cost less than ten dollars (and you could use cheaper materials). Essentially, for $30, a couple compact digital cameras set on video mode, an orange vest, and some time we were able to reach thousands of people. We sincerely hope more people take this project, improve on it, ane get it out into the world.
This is great!
Very nice work guys, keep it up! Respect from Hungary.
Great work. Harmless yet sends the right message. I’m interested to see what you guys do next. Make it huge :D
Absolutely fucking brilliant! This absolutely made my night (and I was having a bad one)
Traduce by yourself !
Mon dieu, vous etes trop des vandals avec vos cartons découpés et vos bouts de scotchs !!! Juste expliquez moi un truc, que viens faire le graffiti la dedans ? Depuis quand le graffiti est il synonyme de publicité ? Et donc cette polution visuelle selon vos propos s’apparente à la polution du graffiti, mais en vrai… Quel réflexion digne d’une agence anti-pub !! On sent l’engagement transpiré dans vos chaussettes !
Je ne vous salue pas, bande de buzzeurs. sur le principe le concept est bon, mais l’application bouuuuuuuh !! trop cheum
Why do you keeping posting the same article, I mean graffiti ad on Newstoday? It is getting really old, it is the “same difference” as advertising! Get real job, stop complaining, get a life! Your organization is the true vandal here.
BTW- Good concept, the video sucks and poor execution. Must be high school drop-outs, unable to get real design jobs!
The question underlying all this (with this:scope specifying all visible information in /world/space/public): what should we be looking at?
Case in point: in a world of GPS-based navigation, are freeway signs visual blight?
Traduce by yourself !
I can translate for you all:
Mon dieu, vous etes trop des vandals avec vos cartons découpés et vos bouts de scotchs !!!
My God, what vandals you are with your stencils and pieces of tape!!!
Juste expliquez moi un truc, que viens faire le graffiti la dedans ? Depuis quand le graffiti est il synonyme de publicité ?
Just explain something to me, what does graffiti have to do with it? Since when is graffiti synonymous with advertising?
Et donc cette polution visuelle selon vos propos s’apparente à la polution du graffiti, mais en vrai…
And so this visual pollution according to what you say is connected to graffiti’s pollution, but for real….
Quel réflexion digne d’une agence anti-pub !! On sent l’engagement transpiré dans vos chaussettes !
Such an honorable concept from an anti-advertising agency no less! We can see the hard work by the sweat of your brow (literally – transpiring in your socks)
Je ne vous salue pas, bande de buzzeurs.
I don’t salute you, band of zappers (buzzeurs is actually a nintendo game in France)
sur le principe le concept est bon, mais l’application bouuuuuuuh !! trop cheum
In principal the concept is good, but its application blaaaahhhhh !! not pretty cheum is a slang word
Hope this helps.
the older i get the less i want to work with cans….you just get fucked more and more each year haha this shit is so awesome….what are they gonna say? you destroyed the plasma screens with tape and cardboard???
and the whole boston scandle! fucking awesome.i wish i got one of those signs…
Specifically, the track is “El Pico,” by Ratatat, on the CD “Ratatat.” Awesome stuff.
Very cool video as well.
hi, i think what you are doing is fantastic. i support you %100. I am a lighting director at a local rock venue in michigan. i live in a town full of sheep and i want to wake these fuckers up. how do i get involved?
have ever considered making a clothing line with you theories and ideas on them with pictures of your work and designs on them and other little stuff. Let me know what you think.
I’m in shanghai (it is a city of china), your technology is very good i’m very like studing for you ,can you help me ?my email: wg.43@126.com
Advertising and graffiti can be both ugly, beautiful and everything in between. But that is not the point here. Art is not about making pretty things to look at, its about a reflection of society, us and the world we live in. Here this project is outstanding, communicating why/how graffiti is art, reflecting the ever increasing branding going on in our public space. This is awesome! …awesome!!!
Hi there, I am doing a presentation on graffiti and advertising in my psych. of communications course this Thursday. This clip is great and would make a great supplemental statement to my presentation. I was wondering if perhaps you could send me the file b/c we don’t have internet access in the classroom and the only way I could play it would be off of my laptop. I don’t have QuickTime pro nor anm I super computer savvy with this sort of thing so I don’t think I can just save it to my computer, and plus, I’d like to ask for your permission to use it. I would give full credit to the creators and it would really mean a lot to me. Thx Meg
Jason Eppink: The Pixelator
http://www.jasoneppink.com/pixelator/
Don’t you think it’s a little ironic that you all are putting up cut-outs as part of a project sponsored by that bored heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, a company which number 36 on the Fortune 500 and has PLENTY of advertising out there??
brilliant!!
you guys do great work.
i hope to see more crimes of great art out there.
im going to NYC after thanksgiving and i am wishing that i will see some of your guys’s art up there by the way i live in San Diego
badass
Purely innovative and ingenius. Brilliant work, guys. I wonder if you can contrapt something that wraps around a street light and spins naturally with the wind, producing a disco ball effect.
Can you imagine driving down that street? :P
It’s an great video. is it on youtube so I can send just the video to people?
This stuff is FAN FUCKING TASTIC!!! I’d love to get in on something like this down in Nashville. We’re (family and some friends) are working on the Laser Tag system from GRL, and want to branch out and find more ways to wake people up from this mess, other than putting them in awe at tagging a building with a laser. But yeah, to be to the point, you guys executed this perfectly…and there’s really nothing that NYC can do, because all you technically doing is “advertising against graffiti”
you guys are brilliant
Wow I’m really impressed and inspired. Personally I’m not bothered about the fact that this work might (possibly) reflect badly on the public’s opinion of graffiti, i think its message and its beautiful execution are far more important.
LMAO @ Paul
Whats really ironic is people like you using the word irony, incorrectly.
Pick up a fucking dictionary sometime.
I find it all a bit spineless and kind of a ridiculous game you are playing. What you are doing is in fact the very worst example of what your are rallying against. I agree that the wanton, unlicensed posting of bills throughout Manhattan creates an eyesore and this lawlessness should be enforced. But the video panels you chose to attack because they made good backlight for your own vandalism are licensed owned and the advertisers whose messages you chose to cover up paid for that space and time. This is capatalism and here is how it works since you obviously don’t get it. Companies advertise their products or services to as broad an audience as they can. This audience then spends their money on those products or services. The companies profit, they hire all of us so we can earn a living. They pay taxes so we can have paved streets, police coverage, fire protection and emergency medical service. Would you rather your employer not make a profit and have to lay you off? Admit it… you’re just playing a kids game and getting some much needed attention.
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