All it takes is a crawling woman in a hairy suit, a bunch of jumping men with televisions on their heads or a guy projecting his private parts onto public buildings to turn urban settings into surreal theatrical stages. Like guerilla action, performance art is a kind of “culture-jamming”, a deliberate interruption of daily life – and it certainly causes people to snap out of their little bubbles and take notice of their surroundings.

Marlene Hairy Crawling and Bathing Performance

(images via: vargas.org.uk)

Imagine walking down the street and suddenly noticing something that looks like a nightmarish combination of Chewbacca and Cousin It crawling at your feet. A 2005 performance art project in Vienna called “Marlene Hairy or In My Bathtub I am the Captain” was all that and creepier, because if you followed it, the crawling progressed to bathing. Artist Marlene Haring led about fifty onlookers across town to her home, then went into her bathroom and shut the door, which bore a sign reading “If you want to talk with me, you have to bathe with me.” Several people got into the bath.

Penis Projector

(image via: metro)

Is performance artist Jaime del Val overcompensating for some perceived shortcoming, or just really into phallic shadow art? Both and neither, according to him. Del Val, who walks the streets of Madrid projecting gigantic images of his penis onto urban surfaces, says buildings are “organs of power”. He also states that he’s seeking to promote himself as a “pangender cyborg” in protest against homophobia, surveillance, control and consumer society.

Public Wrestling Challenge

(image via: artdaily.org)

Violence is good. Or at least, that seems to be the message artist Anthony Schrag is sending out as he challenges the public to take their anger out on him for a performance art piece. Schrag believes that violence is too often considered undesirable when at times, it can be cathartic. He has built his career on using the human body as a tool of communication.

“I’m no professional, and there is certainly a sense of danger in letting strangers do what they will with my skinny little body, but that is what makes the project interesting: The trust and sense of reality between two people that only know each other as opponents. If I show contenders that I trust them, it is usually reciprocated – and there’s a referee on hand in case things get too rough!”

Creepy Japanese Crawling Robot

It’s a bizarre scene: a nurse pulling down the pants of an aging Japanese businessman, who’s crawling down an Australia sidewalk. Only, the ‘man’ is actually a robot, meant to symbolize the Asian economic crash and Japan’s rigid “salaryman” culture, and the ‘nurse’ is performance artist Momoyo Torimitsu.

SWARMUSIC Guerilla Street Performance

It’s the LA art scene – is anything surprising? Six men in weird masks blaring unsettling music from amplifiers strapped to their chests barely get a reaction in this town.  A strange bit of guerrilla performance art called SWARMUSIC took place in the midst of a November 2009 downtown Los Angeles Art Walk. Each of the performers walked a planned route, and each of their amplifiers was playing a portion of a song. As the performers wove in and out of the crowd, the “song” faded in and out.

Guitar-Playing Birds

The rhythm of daily life can be chaotic… especially when you allow wild creatures to play instruments. French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot set up a bunch of instruments in a walk-through aviary for a performance art installation at The Curve in London, allowing a flock of zebra finches to make their own special music. The installation will be live from February 27th, 2010 to May 23rd 2010.

Attack of the Inflatable Artist

What else is there to do when a giant inflatable sculpture is running toward you at full-speed, but haul ass in the other direction? Pittsburg, Kansas performance artist Jimmy Kuehnle says he just wants to shake people out of their zombie-like routines, make them smile and “change their way of thinking in a small way.” Their reactions range from the expected avoidance to fascination to cursing.

Underwater Stripper

(images via: weirduniverse.net)

In 1949, performance art wasn’t all that common – and people weren’t yet completely hypnotized by the boob tube. So it’s easy to see why the spectacle of underwater stripping would draw a crowd, like the routine done by one “Divena” in New Orleans. But apparently, Divena’s fellow strippers weren’t too happy about the attention she was getting. The caption under the bottom photo, from LIFE Magazine, reads “Stripper Evangeline Sylvas angrily breaks a water tank being used by a fellow stripper—a disruption that was not a planned part of the act.”

Street with a View

(image via: street with a view)

Google Street View gets a lot more interesting on one particular Pittsburg block thanks to an organized performance art campaign called Street with a View. Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley gather neighborhood residents on Sampsonia Way to act out parades, marathons, band practices and other scenes – all for the enjoyment of virtual tourists.

The Walking Tree Man

Nothing grabs attention in the streets quite like a 12-foot walking tree. Performance artist Cliff Spenger aims to bring a little nature to urban environments and inspire people to reconnect with the natural world.

Trash Mind / Tri Tue Rac

Vietnamese artists Le Van Son and Le Nguyen Manh teamed up with Danish artist Christian Falsnaes for a project called “Trash Mind / Tri Tue Rac”, which involved jumping around in reflective vests with televisions on their heads. Maybe they’re trying to say that TV trashes our minds, or maybe they just like to shock the hell out of random people on the streets of Hanoi. Either way, it’s entertaining.

Johan Lorbeer’s Defiance of Gravity

(images via: johan lorbeer)

Wait, is that guy floating? It sure seems like it, when artist Johan Lorbeer takes his installations “Proletarian Mural” and “Tarzan” to the streets. Lorbeer gazes serenely out in space while hovering a dozen or more feet in the air, casually leaning his arm against a building. Onlookers gather and stare in wonder, trying to figure out exactly how he can pull off such an illusion (hint: the supporting arm is fake).

Giant Liverpool Spider

(image via: the telegraph)

Anyone with a fear of spiders would have been well-advised to stay away from Liverpool in September of 2008, when an outrageously large spider appeared on the side of a downtown building. This work of street theater came at an unusually large cost and scale – the £250,000 spider measured over 65 feet across and was operated by 12 people strapped to its frame, who coordinated its movements.

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The term “off the grid” has been proudly used for many years by those who choose to produce their own electricity or live without electricity. But there’s a whole other perspective to living off the grid: those who do it out of necessity. The majority of these can be defined as squatters: people living in an otherwise unoccupied place without a legal right to be there. An estimated one billion people are defined as squatters – that’s about one out of every seven people on the planet. Squatting has been depicted in movies and television shows as a practice of the poor, the drug-addled and the otherwise disaffected, but there are layers upon layers in this segment of the population, and some of them are full of surprises.

Squatting as a Political Protest

(images via: Daily Mail)

With millions of families waiting for public housing in Britain, it seems a shame to see so many residences sitting empty. At least that’s what a group of artists calling themselves the Da! Collective said when they moved into this 30-room, £6.25 million Mayfair mansion in October 2008. The home, originally built in the 1730s and now owned by the billionaire Duke of Westminster, has been abandoned for quite some time, and the interior is in a state of disrepair. The group of squatters, mostly young middle-class people, decided to move into the home to give it new life. They gained access through an open front window and set up residence inside, decorating the 30-some rooms with art projects and sacking out in sleeping bags. They also changed the locks and had the electric service reconnected. In Britain, squatting is not a criminal matter and the building’s owner has to file an eviction notice to remove any unauthorized occupants. The collective was ordered to leave the Mayfair mansion just two months after taking up residence, but that hasn’t stopped them from staking out new abandoned homes to squat in.

Squatting as Art

(images via: Dornob)

As with the London squatters, these brothers are occupying an otherwise unused space not out of necessity, but to make a statement. Tiago and Gabrial Primo climbed 33 feet up the side of a Rio de Janeiro building (with safety harnesses firmly in place) and spent 12 hours a day for several months hanging out in their hammock, lounging in their loveseat or snoozing in their bed. And to answer the first question just about everyone asks: their bathroom was located indoors, in the adjoining art gallery.

Subterranean Lives: Mole People

(images via: Dornob)

It’s long been thought that whole societies of people dwell beneath large cities, living out their lives in a world completely hidden from the one most of us occupy. In her 1993 book The Mole People, Jennifer Toth exposed and explored the vast society of people living under the surface of New York City. Making their homes in abandoned subway tunnels and using discarded materials to build makeshift shelters, these “mole people” remain largely invisible to surface dwellers. They are so invisible, in fact, that many people doubt Toth’s accounts of their underground lives. But a 2009 article in London’s The Sun exposed a similar conclave living in the storm drains beneath Las Vegas. Complete with interviews and photographs, this story seemed to confirm what many had previously called an urban legend.

A City of Garbage Collectors

(images via: Dornob)

On the outskirts of Cairo sits a city that defies logic. It looks like a scene straight out of the movie Wall-E: every available surface is covered in garbage. There are piles of it in every building, on the streets, even on the rooftops. In between the mountains of rubbish, herds of pigs nosh happily on whatever organic matter there is to be found in the refuse . Yet this isn’t an abandoned place left to be taken over by wildlife: it’s a city of 30,000 inhabitants. Manshiyat naser, usually known as Garbage City, is filled with people who make their living collecting and sorting trash. They put aside anything that can be recycled for money or sold and feed the organic refuse to the pigs (or at least they did until the swine flu of 2009 forced Egyptian officials to remove the pigs). The area functions much like any other city, having shops, schools and churches, but lacks a stable infrastructure to provide amenities like electricity, running water and sewer service. The people who live there aren’t paid to haul the garbage away from apartment buildings, but they are sometimes tipped for their services and manage to support themselves by sorting Cairo’s trash.

Life in a Cage: The Crowded City

(images via: Pop-Up City and Schoeni)

An unfortunate side effect of urbanization is the skyrocketing costs of city life. In Hong Kong, property prices have reached world record highs. In response to the unaffordable prices of even small apartment, people have been living in wire cages like these for years. The enclosures are tiny, and it can get unbearably hot with all those bodies in a small space. In a CNN story from October 2009, residents revealed that there were 19 people living in a 625 square foot apartment. A bottom-level cage will run you around $150 a month, whereas an upper-level enclosure would cost closer to $100 because they are slightly smaller. While these residents aren’t exactly squatters – they pay exorbitant rents for the amount of space they live in – they certainly are off-grid. There are two toilets for all 19 residents, one faucet, no shower, and their electricity is “donated.” Many residents end up living in cages because of the failing Hong Kong economy and the poor job market.

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The stark contrast of monochromatic, crumbling stone buildings and small, colorful plastic toy blocks is especially jarring in Berlin, where evidence of the horrors of World War II is still visible in cracks and bullet holes. But that’s what makes this setting so poignant for German artist Jan Vormann, who patches damage to old buildings around the world with Legos.

Vormann aims to fill Berlin with new life – even if only temporarily and symbolically – using this sometimes controversial juxtaposition of new and old, and the unity that it brings to onlookers who stop to help.

From young children to the elderly, people crowded around the artist to poke colorful little blocks into fissures in the façade of Kupfergraben/Dorotheenstraße, a building at Humboldt University.

Like all German universities, Humboldt was turned into a Nazi educational institution during the war and stands as a vital, if solemn, reminder of the Third Reich’s influence on Germany.

“Berlin is the city where I live in right now. I thought it would be fun to do it here, considering the historic value of the walls, the imprint of troubled times can still be seen today,” Vormann told HalogenLife.

“Concerning the continuation of the project, I want to “repair” every broken wall in the whole world with Dispatchwork. Why not? I think it is a fun approach towards conceiving the decay that time brings along.”

“Also it leaves a positive imprint in people’s mind. As long as kids play, adults will build walls. And those wall break. Let’s patch them up with colorful plastic pieces. Life is serious, so that makes playing sometimes even more important.”

Fans can keep up with the worldwide Dispatchwork project in countries like Russia, Serbia and Israel on an interactive map at Dispatchwork.info.

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Guerilla marketing is about using a small budget for big results. Some guerilla ad campaigns are completely waged on the social media front. Others are creatively brilliant, while still others are simply strange. Here are guerilla marketing campaigns, 22 ads from bizarre to brilliant.

Kids

(image credits: Indian Ads Blog,Techie Blogger)

Assema Charitable Trust for Children struck up a guerilla ad campaign, “Make every child count.” In the affluent city of Mumbai, the need to raise awareness for educating street children was highlighted through transforming storm drains into abacuses. The act of which was bringing the school to the street, making it impossible for these residents in high-end estates to ignore. On the right, Nobody’s Children Foundation came out with many porcelain kid posters. The slogan is “You can lose more than your patience.”

Amnesty International: Woman in a suitcase

(image credit: Ads of the World)

Serviceplan of Germany created this ad for Amnesty International to mark the 60th Anniversary of Human Rights as an action plan against human trafficking which affects more than 500,000 women and girls annually. The idea was to start a promotion campaign which was impossible not to notice. The woman in a crystal suitcase was one of the most successful promotion in recent years.

New Mexico DOT Some Things Can’t Be Reversed

The horrifying repercussions of drinking and driving bluntly tumble from the screen in an emotive film for the New Mexico Department of Transportation written and directed by Smoke & Mirrors New York’s Sean Broughton.

Anagram Bookshop

(image credit: Adverrt)

Anagram, in Prague, is an English-language bookshop with a vast assortment of fiction and nonfiction. Anagram came out with many ads like the one above, beautifully illustrating their slogan “Words Create Worlds.”

Kissing

(image credits: Ads of the World,Ads of the World)

Both of these agencies and ads center around kissing. Leo Burnett of Italy created the top ad for Zaini. The slogan is “The smoothest milk chocolate.” On the bottom, the Miami Ad School of San Francisco took Tide to a new level. The slogan is “Because stains love your clothes.”

To Save

(image credits: Ads of the World,Ads of the World)

To save people, places, things…a common tactic. Neither of these ads were particularly well received. Serviceplan of Germany came up with KingKong. The gorilla is in an extraordinary battle of life and death with the horrifying human. On the right, Blue Circle Advertising of Jakarta, Indonesia, created an ad for Barclays Bank. “Water.  Every drop counts because water is precious.”

Generosity Water: Dog Bowls

With an emotional tug to the heartstrings, Rapp USA created this TV ad for Generosity Water. Throughout the beach cities in Los Angeles, free drinking water is provided to dogs outside of local businesses and along the Strand. In order to bring the global clean water crisis to life for people so accustomed to readily available water, we’ve decided to talk about their pets. The reality: our pets drink cleaner water than 1 billion people across the globe. What now?

Copenhagen Zoo Snake Bus

(image credit: Ads of the World)

Some ads are amazingly well executed. Copenhagen-based ad agency Bates Y&R created this super cool, outdoor ad campaign for the Copenhagen Zoo. A giant constrictor snake is squeezing a complete Copenhagen city bus.

Senior Self Defence Academy Deadly Seniors

(image credit: Ads of the World)

10 advertising of Antwerp, Belgium, created a series of ads where senior citizens kick bad guys to the curb. This campaign seems to be paying off for both seniors and the Senior Self Defense Academy.

Condoms

(image credits: Desigg,Ads of the World)

German condom manufacturers Condomi promoted the “Ultra Thin” line with this print and outdoor advertisement showing a condom-shaped bubble. The ad won a Golden Drum for Press and Golden Drum Grand Prix award for Outdoors.The Ultra Thin Bubble ad was developed at DRAFTFCB Kobza in Wien, Austria. Now Available of Milan, Italy, spread the word for the bottom ad campaign event through social media. The “Condom Mob” had 230 people in a condom against AIDS!

Infographic Ads

(image credits: Ads of the World,Ads of theWorld)

The top infographic for DEVK Insurance is simple but manages to convey its message to drivers. It was created by Grabarz & Partner of Hamburg, Germany. The bottom Lovescheme infographic was created by Walker Werbeagentur of Switzerland and is complex. “What to say and what to avoid saying during sex. 50 Recipes for Success.”

Exclusive Books Charade

This TV commercial from the advertising agency Ogilvy, in Johannesburg, South Africa, was for Exclusive Books. It is called Charades. The slogan is “There’s a club for people who love to read.”

Rowenta

(image credit: Ads of the World)

This Duck hunting Rowenta ad is from Publicis in Frankfurt, Germany. The slogan is “RO4541 Silence Force, 2100 Watt Vacuum Cleaner.”

ZDF: Interrupt

(image credit: Ads of the World)

Kolle Rebbe, in Hamburg, Germany, created this billboard collection for ZDF. The slogan is “Erotic movies without interruption.” The ad also states “Summer night fantasies. Mondays at 10:15 pm.”

Yikes! Too Much?

(image credit: Ads of the World)

There is definite shock value to seeing a beheaded Santa, but is it too much? www.mettiamocilatesta.it is a web-based campaign promoted by Milc against the decrease of advertising investments during the economic crisis. On this ad it shows the tag Santa dream developer. Creativity is that extra bit of magic that can turn communication into a dream. And there is no crisis that can justify the killing of a dream. The slogan is “Don’t cut a dream.”

African Diamond Council: Conflict Diamonds

Again there is shock value to this “every diamond tells a story” ad. Young & Rubicam of Cape Town, South Africa, put together this TV commercial for the African Diamond Council. The slogan is “Conflict Diamonds.” It is both powerful and disturbing.

Heineken Boxes Walk-in Fridge

(image credits: Ads of the World)

At the end 2009, Heineken put the famous Walk-in Fridge commercial on air once more. At the same time, these huge Walk-in Fridge boxes were put on the streets of Amsterdam on garbage day, to imply that the huge fridge was actually for sale and that people were actually buying it.

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When negative comments are made about public art, they usually revolve around the art being unattractive, too permanent, or a waste of city funds (either for commissioning a sanctioned piece or cleaning up an unsanctioned one). But two different public art projects in France are capturing attention and imaginations with their simplicity and impermanence – and they use a material that’s highly unexpected.

Street Interventions

(images via: Cedric Bernadotte)

French artist Cedric Bernadotte wanted to figure out a new way for humans to interact with the urban environment. He believes that stopping to rest and enjoy a few quiet moments is essential for one’s enjoyment of the city. He accomplishes his goals with the creative use of cellophane, industrial tapes and inflatables.

(images via: Cedric Bernadotte)

Using the type of sealing plastic that’s used to secure pallets, Bernadotte invents new spaces using existing city objects. Stretching from one signpost to another, bridging the empty spaces of a public art sculpture or simply closing the gap between two large rocks, his created objects are an experiment in public versus private space.

(images via: Cedric Bernadotte)

They are often chairs or benches, made of nothing more than strong plastic, maybe some tape, and a great deal of curiosity. It’s amazing to watch the faces of passers-by light up when they see an unexpected place to perch momentarily. A swing in the middle of the city adds a touch of whimsy to anyone’s day, and a hammock in the sun provides the perfect spot for a mid-day nap. But most impressive of all is the fact that every piece of Bernadotte’s Street Interventions project is ephemeral; existing only temporarily and leaving no trace when it’s gone.

Cellograff

(images via: CelloGraff)

In 2006, three art students joined forces in France and formed Poetically Correct. The group eventually changed its name to CelloGraff and lost a member, but gained a compelling idea: why not decorate the city with graffiti, but in a way that would hardly be objectionable? Their plan: transient graffiti that would be as elaborate and artistic as they want, but which disappears within minutes when needed.

(images via: CelloGraff)

To achieve their vision, the artists turned to cellophane. Much like Bernadotte, they wanted a material that was cheap, readily available, and would leave no sign after it was removed. They stretch temporary canvases between trees, signs or whatever is nearby. They partition off small pieces of the urban landscape for themselves. And then, they paint. They create huge pieces that would rival most graffiti artists, but they aren’t out to tag up the entire city. They are interested only in the transience of their interactions with the urban environment.

(images via: CelloGraff)

In this way, the artists, known as Astro and Kanos, call into question many ideas about graffiti. Other artists have shown that it’s more socially acceptable to paint on canvas than on city walls, but graffiti artists who only paint commissioned pieces tend to lose the respect of some peers as well as the visibility that comes from painting in public places. Astro and Kanos bridge that gap, leaving their graffiti (and their CelloGraff logo) to the public eye but doing it in a way that (mostly) respects the laws and statutes of the area.

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