Category Archives: News

Shopdropping Workshop in San Francisco

The Anti-Advertising Agency’s own Amanda Eicher of PeopleProducts123 will be hosting a free shopdropping workshop at Southern Exposure in San Francisco on Thursday June 28th from 5 to 8pm. She’ll be presenting the workshop in her hometown after doing several workshops in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York earlier this year.

Attendees will hear about PeopleProducts123, get advice on how to leave objects in retail stores, and hands-on experience shopdropping in teams around San Francisco.

Southern Exposure is at 2901 Mission Street on the corner of 25th in San Francisco.

Posted in News | Tagged | 2 Responses

City fights illegal gig posters with CANCELLED stickers

In a remarkable “Plate of Shrimp”/cosmic unsconsiousness type event, this popped up on BoingBoing today.

City fights illegal gig posters with CANCELLED stickers

The city council of Glasgow is fighting illegal handbills with science: they’re paying city workers to go around and stick “cancelled” stickers on all the illegal gig posters put up around town. Staff who patrol the city every working day spotting new posters and marking them are now a central part of the council’s £100,000 a year war on flyposting.

Cancelled

And other workers have been issued with “cancelled” stickers which make it clear the ad has been banned by the council. And they have already had an impact on some rogue promoters who have been inundated with complaints from music fans. People who have bought tickets to some of this summers big gigs have complained, thinking that an event, rather than the advert, had been cancelled.

Link (Thanks, Jono!)
(Photo thumbnail ganked from a larger pic credited to Jamie Simpson)

I had seen a circus poster in the subway with a “CANCELLED” sticker over it in NY last month. It was the only one I saw and it made me wonder if it was fake. Then I thought… anyone could do that! Which turned into another idea that will materialize at Conflux this September. Oh the suspense…

(thanks Mark.)

Also posted in Reference Library | Tagged , , , | 4 Responses

Oprah, baby, please let me DeTouch you…

My Mom recently expressed exasperation at a toothy magazine cover of Oprah Winfrey. “She’s the same age as me, so why doesn’t she have bags under her eyes and everything else?”
The answer is, of course, the vanity tag-team of plastic surgery and photo airbrushing! Thanks to Evan Roth, a senior fellow at the Eyebeam OpenLab, my mom can soon see EXACTLY where Oprah’s eye baggage is hidden. Roth’s project, DeTouch, uses the open-source technology, Processing, to deconstruct magazine retouching pixel by pixel. Using before and after photos, DeTouch uses algorithms to map the precise aspects of the “before” photo that were deleted, added or changed by the retouch artist.
This program is an essential media literacy tool, especially for young women who might put their natural bodies at harm to mimic the fantasy world that gleaming glossy magazine covers create. With scary television shows that treat plastic surgery treatments to be as blasé and normal as buying a new pair of shoes, DeTouch provides a reality check that we all desperately need.

Also posted in Reference Library | 13 Responses

AddArt in NY Times

AddArt, a browser plugin I’m developing at Eyebeam was written about in the New York Times today.

nytimes-380.png

AddArt is an extension for the Firefox browser which removes advertising and replaces it with art. The project is being developed and I’m looking for funding to pay coders as well as provide stipends to artists and curators. If you’d like to make a tax deductible donation, let me know.

Read the Times story…

Also posted in Add-Art, Agency Projects | Tagged , | 3 Responses

Steve Lambert Speaking in Chicago

A quick note to those in and near Chicago – I will be speaking at Mess Hall on Friday May 4 and this years Versionfest on Saturday May 5 as part of the Eyebeam Roadshow. More details here.

Posted in News | 1 Response

The Sweet Failure of a Pork Barrel Valentine

Katrina Smashed Billboards

The imperative Iraq budget is long overdue, so doesn’t it make sense that Congress should spend hours discussing the oldest federal law regulating billboards, the 1965 Highway Beautification Act?

This unlikely coupling was courtesy of Senator Harry Reid, who, admidst the thoughts of blood, debt and destruction abroad, folded in a big wet kiss to our advertising boys here at home.

Also posted in Articles | Leave a comment

“Hey girl, that’s a nice stick you’ve got there!”

Note: This post was contributed by guest writer, Emily Gallagher. She’ll be covering news about ad creep, artists projects, and other items of interest to us here at the Anti-Advertising Agency. This will allow us to keep the site active while I work on other things (as well as some upcoming surprises from the AAA). If you have a tip for Emily or would like to make a contribution of your own, please contact us. –Steve Lambert

Instant Trash Good news! Former Boeing executive Tom Burns has solved two of North America’s most pressing problems in one little, instantly disposable product! Yes, now coffee shops will FINALLY have a place to promote their business while preventing scalding drips of coffee from sloshing out of a to-go cup’s sippy hole. StixToGo, the answer to our prayers, is a thick plastic plug with an enormous eye-level protuberance to stick an advertisement on. One can guess that the plug will remain in the sippyhole for a duration of 5 seconds, but the website avoids using the phrase, “instant pieces of junk” and assures us that customers and coffee house owners love StixToGo. Read More »

Also posted in Reference Library | Tagged | Leave a comment

David Lynch on Product Placement

Posted in News | Tagged | Leave a comment

Pixelator

Pixelator

Artist Jasom Eppink has built on our project, Light Criticism (and others), with his own invention – the Pixelator. C’mon folks, let’s keep this going – build on it!

Posted in News | Tagged , , | 6 Responses

2007 Bi-annual Report at The Lab

Dear Stakeholders,

The Anti-Advertising Agency will make available it’s 2007 bi-annual report at The Lab during their Corporate Art Expo ’07. The digital slide presentation will outline the Agency’s projects from the past 2 years. We also have some take-away materials (stencils, stickers) available for guests.

Other artist borrowing corporate structures at the expo include: Acclair, C5 Corporation, Davis & Davis Research, Meaning Maker, Death and Taxes, Inc., Old Glory Condom Co., PP Valise, SubRosa, Slop Art, Training and Development Investigative Reporting Team, Tectonic Industries, and We Are War

Corporate Art Expo '07 Post Card

Opening Reception – Friday, March 30, 6-9 PM
The Lab 2948 16th Street @ Capp. San Francisco CA

more information can be found here: http://www.thelab.org/

Posted in News | Leave a comment

2 Samaras Project Posters

Worker Owned Gleaning

Josh MacPhee has made two Samaras Project posters in pdf form downloadable for free. They are based on our Samaras Project Postcards (also downloadable for free). Print them out and hang them up in your town!

Also posted in Agency Projects, Downloads, Samaras Project | Tagged , | 2 Responses

Samaras Project selected in Environmental Film Fest

The Samaras Project website has been selected in Ithaca’s Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival as part of a digital art exhibition called “Undisclosed Recipients.”

Posted in News | Comments closed

Microsoft marketers get the slap from Austin PD

Zune Arrest 1 Zune Arrest 2

In a rare instance of illegal marketers getting caught and being photographed in the process, Austin P.D. arrest a posterer for Microsoft Zune at SXSW this week and we get to enjoy it a bit. Marketers, desperate to stand out among advertising saturation, continue to use illegal methods. However, (as mentioned here before) advertisers are often not as susceptible to police action as artists and non-profit activists. They are also more likely protected from fines by very deep pockets.

While reluctant to support arrests for public posting, if punishment leads further up the chain to fines and some balance in the enforcement of illegal corporate advertising vs individual acts of artists and activists… it may be well-worth celebrating. However we’re not holding our breath. Either way Austin P.D. sticking it to Microsoft seems right to me.

Thanks losanjealous for the coverage.

– from guest writer Doris Cacoilo

Posted in News | Tagged , | 1 Response

Graphic Imagery

I just came across this video. When we posted our Light Criticism video last month, a lot of people wondered how it was possible that city dwellers see over 5,000 advertisements each day (source). This video may help.

“Kapitaal is a typographical stroll throug a Dutch city revealing the influence of graphic design.” Kapitaal is a a project based animation made by Ton Meijdam, Thom Snels, and Bla Zsigmond for Museum De Beyerd, Dutch Museum for Graphic Design. It was also shown at Version>06 in Chicago.

Also posted in Articles, Reference Library | Tagged , , , , | 4 Responses

World’s Smallest Advert Subvert

Printable Cold Sores

With a half-inch sticker you can do so much. Thanks to the anonymous author of this project that popped up on the internet in the past few days.

Also posted in Articles, Reference Library | Tagged , , | 1 Response