Advertising is so ubiquitous that billboards aren’t even restricted to fixed positions anymore; they’re often found moving from one spot to another on trailers, always in search of those all-important eyeballs. Inside these trailers are little spaces that, one would imagine, are too small to be of any real use. But Belgian artist and hacktivist Karl Philips has taken some practical function from these ugly urban fixtures by turning them into tiny ‘parasite apartments.’
The series, entitled ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,’ consists of three billboard trailers which have been hacked into living spaces just the right size for a single-person mattress and a small collection of possessions.
Billboards take up a considerable amount of space, and it can be argued that most of them don’t have a positive impact on society. By turning them into houses, the revenue from the ads goes to the people who live within.
According to Philips’ biography, he is particularly interested in the margins of society, focusing on “themes such as gaps in legal, economic and social systems, the omnipresence of advertisement, unrestrained capitalism and consumerism, etc.” His previous work includes a parasite apartment built onto the back of a conventional billboard, invisible from the street.
