WebUrbanist » Subvertising & Counter-Ads

Good Clean Fun: Interactive Games Tidy Urban Spaces

Delana — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:18 +0000

It doesn’t matter where you go in the world: it seems like litter is always an unwelcome part of the scenery. The Swiss city of Lucerne decided to do something about their litter problem by enticing residents and visitors to have fun while throwing their rubbish away. The initiative is called “Lucerne Shines,” and in the many years since it was implemented the city has seen an exceptional response.

(all images via: Freshome)

The project saw 16 public trash bins converted to public game stations. You won’t find any fancy touch-screen games, though – these games are all about cleaning up your mess and leaving the city a little prettier than you found it. From short mazes to free-throw lines to hopscotch, the initiative appeals to everyone who likes to have a little unexpected fun in the middle of an otherwise-ordinary day.

The project is a follow-up to a more general city cleanup initiative. The original effort saw a huge reduction in the amount of waste on city streets, but Lucerne was still spending an astonishing amount of money on litter cleanup every year. The city then had the brilliant idea to use fun as an incentive…and suddenly, the citizens of Lucerne just couldn’t wait to pop their trash into the waiting receptacles.

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Billboard House: Reclaiming Sky-High Commercial Space

Steph — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:00:13 +0000

Some billboards are just begging to be subverted, while others take us by surprise with their creativity and ingenuity. But whether you hate these humongous advertising platforms or think they’re an important part of modern society, billboards probably aren’t going away anytime soon. That’s why design team Apostrophy’s has attempted to make them more multi-purpose with the intriguing Billboard House.

Currently on display in Bangkok, Thailand for the Baan Iae Suan Fair, ‘Billboard House’ preserves the current advertising function of billboards, but adds an extra element: an elevated private domicile. Apostrophy’s explains that all three parties would benefit from this arrangement: the advertisers and billboard agencies who still get what they need out of the billboard, and the owner/dweller, who gets an extra income from the advertising rent.

The multi-story home is surprisingly spacious, and the views certainly can’t be beat. Rather than a conventional billboard post, the home sits on a trailer base that enables it to be moved when necessary. Solar cells on the roof provide energy, and the rails offer space to grow hydroponic plants.

While not everyone would be crazy about having their home plastered with ads (especially if those ads were offensive or objectionable), such an arrangement democratizes the space that is currently given over to advertisig in cramped urban locations, making smart use of it. That is, as long as these homes are replacing existing billboards and not just adding even more visual clutter.

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Art, Not Ads: 13 Creative Billboard Takeovers

Steph — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:00:39 +0000

While billboard advertising can occasionally shock us with totally unexpected visuals, by and large, these massive champions of commercialism are not exactly pretty or interesting. Enter artists from around the world, who – with permission or not – come in and replace those ads, whether to subvert the original message or just to make passersby smile.

Double Happiness Billboard Swing

(images via: didierfaustino)

A billboard becomes a place for interactive play, made into a swing set with incredible views of New York City by artist Didier Faustino. Entitled ‘Double Happiness’, the project “responds to the society of materialism where individual desires seem to be prevailing over all. This nomad piece of urban furniture allows the reactivation of different public spaces and enables inhabitants to reappropriate fragments of their city.”

“They will both escape and dominate public space through a game of equilibrium and desequilibrium. By playing this “risky” game, and testing their own limits, two persons can experience together a new perception of space and recover an awareness of the physical world.”

Artists Take Over Whitewashed Billboards

(images via: animal NY)

Not only did Public Ad Campaign‘s New York Street Advertising Takeover whitewash 120 illegal advertisements located throughout the city, it also brought in over 50 artists to transform these new blank canvases into works of art. Instead of displaying an onslaught of commercialism, these spaces became interactive spaces for messages of peace and local pride. See more at Animal New York.

The Billboard Art Project: Taking Over LED Displays

(images via: billboard art project flickr)

Based in Richmond, Virginia, the Billboard Art Project has spread across the United States as artists take over those massively distracting digital billboards with LED displays. Though it’s not totally subverting the advertisements – they still run as usual – the art appears momentarily in between each ad, perhaps prompting onlookers to wonder exactly what it is that they’re looking at. Many of these works were captured by the organization’s Flickr group.

The Urban Land Project

(images via: the anthropologist)

Rather than an ad for yet another local bond company or huge international bank, locals in urban Los Angeles and Philadelphia got to view soothing images of the nature that can be found right within their own cities. Photographer Tim Simmons captured images of each city’s hidden natural wonders and displayed them on billboards for ‘The Urban Land Project.’

Art In Stead of Ads

(images via: how many billboards)

21 commissioned works by leading contemporary artists were presented onb billboards throughout Los Angeles in February and March 2010 for the project ‘How Many Billboards: Art in Stead’.

“The philosophical proposition of the exhibition is simple: art should occupy a visible position in the cacophony of mediated images in the city, and it should do so without merely adding to the visual noise. How Many Billboards? Art In Stead proposes that art periodically displace advertisement in the urban environment.

Billboards are a dominant feature of the landscape in Los Angeles. Thousands line the city’s thoroughfares, delivering high-end commercial messages to a repeat audience. Given outdoor advertising’s strong presence in public space, it seems reasonable and exciting to set up the possibility for art to be present in this field. The sudden existence of artistic speech mixed in with commercial speech provides a refreshing change of pace. Commercial messaging tells you to buy; artistic messaging encourages you to look and to think.”

Hand from Above by Chris O’Shea

(images via: chris o’shea)

Chris O’Shea imagines a world in which we humans are manipulated by an outside force, unseen except for a giant hand. In O’Shea’s interactive public art exhibit for BBC Big Screen in Liverpool, pedestrians watch a live feed on a billboard as the giant hand pokes and prods them in real time.

From Gajitz: “The installation is called Hand From Above, and it’s geek art at its finest. It was created, according to the artist, to encourage people to slow down in the midst of their daily routines. By throwing something completely unexpected into their day, O’Shea is injecting a little laughter into everyone’s lives. If the video above is any indication, most pedestrians love the project. Only a few walked by without even a smile, and most who saw themselves being harassed on-screen stopped to play along.”

Thoughtful Typography by Robert Montgomery

(images via: robert montgomery)

Artist Robert Montgomery replaces advertising with profound and poignant messages about love, human interaction and the world we live in. The artist “works in a poetic and melancholic post-situationist tradition.” His typographic works bear such disconcerting and thought-provoking messages as this: “The flood will lift the ghosts from the Hollywood Lawn Cemetery and they will disappear like ether in the new dead air. All the names will be erased from the billboards and the theaters and the piers and the magazines and the monuments. You live by myths of immortality, and your myths are not safe.”

Subliminal Billboards

(images via: unurth)

Billboards throughout Murcia, Spain bore strange fragments of type that didn’t make sense until seen as a whole, revealed by the artist Sam3. “”Murcia is infected with the plague of billboards everywhere, most of them neglected. 12 altered billboards to write a word that is hiding behind all this.”

U.S. Marines: The Change is Forever

(image via: arthur tubman)

It was all too easy to subvert a billboard by the U.S. Marines, which really did bear the ambiguous slogan ‘The Change is Forever’. An unidentified artist simply covered the young man’s face with that of a stylized skull, giving it a new meaning altogether.

Rebel Without a Lung by Jorge Rodriguez Geralda

(image via: fecal face)

Artist Jorge Rodriquez Geralda is known for painting his own images onto public surfaces like street signs, the sides of abandoned buildings and even entire construction sites. One notable early work is ‘Rebel Without a Lung’, a subversion of a Newport cigarette ad in New York City, completed in 1994.

McDonalds Billboard by the Billboard Liberation Front

(image vía: camarografo)

It wasn’t too hard to echo growing public sentiment about the quality of McDonald’s fast food. The Billboard Liberation Front just made two small changes to this McDonalds billboard in San Francisco so that the text reads ‘You have about 10,000 tastebuds. Kill them all.’ At the bottom right corner, the company’s slogan ‘I’m lovin’ it’ becomes ‘I’m sick of it.’

Banksy’s Los Angeles Billboards

(images via: design boom)

Graffiti artist Banksy notably altered a billboard in Los Angeles prior to the Academy Awards in February 2011, likely to call attention to the nomination of his documentary ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’. A rather lecherous Micky Mouse, cocktail in hand, was painted onto an existing billboard along with a drugged-out Minnie Mouse and a banner reading, ‘Living the Dream.’ It was quickly removed.

The East London Decapitator

(images via: the decaptitator)

More than a century after Jack the Ripper, London has a new killer on the prowl. This one may be taking the heads of billboard and advertising figures rather than living humans, but the works are still pretty gory. Not only are the heads painted out of the ads, but there’s lots of spattered blood left behind.

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Spiral Pen Portraits Use Pressure to Make Amazing Art

Delana — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:00:24 +0000

It’s always nice to see an artist’s unique talents showcased. Hamburg, Germany-based artist Chan Hwee Chong is definitely a talented artist, and his incredible spiral portraits were the subject of a recent commercial for Faber Castell art pens.

(all images via: Faber Castell)

In the commercial, Chong is shown creating an incredible spiral drawing of the masterpiece painting Girl With a Pearl Earring. The ad is meant to display how precise the Faber Castell pens are, and it definitely does that – but it also illustrates Chong’s remarkable skill.

Beginning with a blank sheet of paper, Chong begins in the middle and draws in an ever-growing spiral, adding detail and subtle movements as he goes. By the time he has reached the outer edges, he has somehow recreated a famous painting.

Watch the video as many times as you like – you will almost certainly be amazed each and every time. This awesome display of talent is kind of humbling, even to other creative types.

It is absolutely mind-boggling to think how Chong accomplishes these drawings. He incorporates texture and varied line thickness to create the kind of depth that is difficult to find in any pen drawing – let alone one drawn in spiral. Besides Girl With a Pearl Earring, Chong also recreated Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s Self Portrait for the Faber Castell campaign.

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Curiouser and Curiouser: Handmade QR Codes Pop Up in NYC

Delana — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:00:01 +0000

The world of digital media tends to feel a bit cold and impersonal. Is there a way to personalize an interaction between a human being, a printed QR code and a digital story of creativity? Designers Lauren Manning and Camile Wei-Hsin Lin put together The Curiosity Project to find out.

(all images via: Laura Manning Design)

The project involved two distinct yet interconnected layers: print media and digital media. The pair decided to use QR codes to drive visitors to the project blog, but they didn’t want to simply post the typical digitally-generated black-and-white pixels. Instead, they made their QR codes by hand.

Using familiar materials like small magnets, Hershey’s Kisses and Post-It notes, the team constructed analog QR codes that were precise enough to be scanned by handheld mobile devices.

Manning and Lin created the analog QR codes by printing or projecting the image of the code onto their work surface, then placing the “pixels” in the appropriate places. They then made the images into posters and stickers and hung them up around New York City.

Scanning the code would take an observer to The Curiosity Project blog, a simple page which, at the time the project was “live,” had only one post visible at a time. During the project, there was no archive and each post was only viewable for 24 hours. The QR codes they posted around the city encouraged people to visit each and every day for new inspiration.

The blog posts center on topics of creativity in its many forms. From urban art installations to LEGO creations to video projects that seek out the unique stories of individuals, The Curiosity Project covers all types of subjects that will no doubt appeal to a WebUrbanist fan’s tastes.

After the one-day run of each blog post, the designers compiled images from each post and put them into collages. These weren’t just digital combinations of photos, though – they were another play on the analog/digital theme: the digital pictures were transferred to postcards which could then be sent via snail mail.