credits Published by: Actar D Roca i Batlle 2 08023 BARCELONA Tel. +34 93 418 77 59 Fax +34 93 418 67 07 office@actar-d.com Edited by: Anna Tetas, Ram贸n Prat, Marc Mascort. Designed by: Jo茫o Martins http://cargocollective.com/mpyd Visit our web site at www.actar.com - www.actar-d.com 2009 Actar Distribution All rights reserved Printed and Bound in Spain
what a perfect, perfect world.
So much order and planning, so many grids, routines and sytems. Its mechanical intricacies are astounding and mesmerizing; it has a pulse all its own. Even now the soft, humming anesthesia of the city seeks to replace what thoughts you may still be allowed to have with white noise. We are here to guard against exactly that. As citizens, we obediently pay our landlords to let us inhabit the homes we make, and we talk casually of the atrocities that our governments commit in our name – so what does it take to end these absurdities? What new forms must we explore, and how can we assume them? How can we weld visual communication to social justice? The answers are as complex and as varied as the artists featured in this compilation. In honoring the libertarian ethic that we prefer, we’ve come together to applaud one another, and to provide a narrative about these activist efforts while simultaneously participating in them. Our work might be described as that design which must be done in pursuit of a more humane and libertarian world, and which claims that notions of freedom and ethical conduct are most poignant when communicated visually. Where mainstream media frames debates, our goal is to open them up or smash them to pieces. Where undemocratic structures put up barriers around our liberties, we are there to subvert them. Many of us have carved out wholly unique (and frequently noncommercial) spaces where we conduct our work, and explore alternative design practices as a means, not an end. Rather than sell revolution, or use revolution to sell a brand, we actively participate in creating that cumulative occurrence that is social change. In our line of work, we can find at least one common theme: influencing systems through design is central to success. If a designer’s work tangibly contributes to fashioning and furthering alternative modes of social organization, it’s working. That design which proffers what could be, and which prefers community and participation thrives in this environment. It’s a rebellion against monoculture, and the editors of this volume are perfectly correct in labeling our work “reactive.” But it’s proactive, too. Cultural production of this variety questions and dismantles dominant ideologies. It is in character for us to not wish for the reform of unjust systems, but to disrupt them and hand out the tools with which to skirt or dismantle them. We work from an unscripted reality, and alleviate (rather than enforce) politics. There is something to be said about this foundation that we work from, and our propensity to thereby create new channels of communicating. The spaces we create through our solidarity, while temporary, are autonomous, culturally relevant, and inclusive. Through our nonparticipation in anything we believe to be evil, we are forging another route. We still sense that there is a life to live, one where we control our own actions, and where the only pulse we hear is not of the city, but the one in our lover’s chest. We see a world where people are compelled by their own will, and where no one is subjected to the numbness of being “under control,” because desire of any sort is always our own, and no one can take it from us. We are creating this world and dismantling an old one, for what better way to build a new world than in our hearts!
STEREOGRAPH REACT Is already alive with extra and multimedia content. Fire up i-nigma on your mobile, scan the smart-codes below, and connect direct to StereoGraph. A QR Code is a matrix code or two-dimensional bar code, created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Code is an open format - the format´s specification is available royalty free from its owner, who has promised not to exert patent rights on it. The term QR Code itself is a registered trademark of Denso Wave Incorporated.
www.i-nigma.com www.denso-wave.com/qrcode
INDEX CULTURE JAMMING
01
018// WOOSTER ON SPRING 026// ALEXANDRE ORION 032// PETER FUSS 044// MOSS GRAFFITI 048// GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB
POLITICAL ART
02
058// GORILLA DESIGN POLITIE 066// SHEPARD FAIREY
PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS
03
072// AWESOME FUTURE
MAPPING YOUR REALITY
04
083// BUREAU D´ÉTUDES
URBAN TYPOS
05
090// PIXO ATTACK 098// GRAFFITI TAXONOMY
ACTIVISM
06
106// PACKARD JENNINGS
ARTIVISM
07
114// DAN TAGUE
CRAFTIVISM 122// KNITTA
08
We want to launch the series with an issue devoted to reactive graphics: in other words, those graphic works that express a reaction to a situation of injustice or defend a particular culture against the domination of more global languages. Quite simply, it is a question of celebrating the critical or dissident potential of graphic designers and visual communicators, the effectiveness of their tools and the intrinsic value of their independent proposals, with an evident capacity to innovate and stimulate reflection. We believe there is a better alternative to the passive dérive of an environment so absorbing and asphyxiating that it obliges us to rebel against it, in the form of a reaction to the imposition of a uniform homogeneity on our distinctive local models and references, resulting in the disappearance of situations and actions unique to autochthonous cultures: scenarios peopled by Frankenstein-like hybrids fashioned from the merging of vernacular references and other, more ‘globalized’ models. We also find scenarios in which to rebel against social injustice, whose origins are in most cases political: wars, dictatorships, oppressive regimes... Of course, this is not a new phenomenon; such critiques have always found expression, from the old broadsheets and pamphlets to the present-day weblogs, but there is no denying that the latest high-tech tools have given a new dimension to such movements, far more global, with a much stronger media presence. Another, related aspect that we will be looking at in this first issue is the importance of the Internet as a medium of diffusion, and of the information technologies —tools and programmes, graphic environments and the rest— at the disposal of today’s graphic designers. All of these things have provided the basis for a huge variety of responses, from groups asserting that another world is possible and anti-global movements that oppose the present the system to works by individual designers and visual communicators who, moved by an awareness of injustices or as a tool of protest, voice their critiques in independent, personal creations that in many cases are not commissioned by a client. Happening in the world. Certain designers would be the subject of in-depth studies, while other would be given a more cursory treatment. Possible participants: Doma, Masa, Stefan Sagmeister, Jonathan Barnbrook, Kenneth Tin Kin Hung, Nuevos Ricos… In relation to the above, we would look at teams such as Adbusters, Worldchanging, Bureau d’études, moveon, etc., some of which would be the subject of detailed analysis. We would compare present-day groups, which primarily operate on the Internet as a platform, with more traditional formations such as NGOs or historic movements of revolt, and on this basis explore the duality between the activism of diffusion and the activism of action. Urban dissidence, culture jamming: Rotor, Billboard Liberation Front, Martin Bricelj, Joystick… In the field of music, rap and hip-hop provide a very powerful example of radical social protest. With their lyrics, groups like Public Enemy react against the system in the same way as graphic designers do with their visual language. Another interesting phenomenon here is the free distribution of music and texts, a concept that is being developed by Platoniq and others. Look inside Copyleft. The issue will necessarily have a significant amount of texts and articles that will both structure and provide a counterpoint to the more visual part. The texts will serve to contextualize the different sections.
FIRST THINGS: A MANIFESTO We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, photographers and students who have been brought up in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable means of using our talents. We have been bombarded with publications devoted to this belief, applauding the work of those who have flogged their skill and imagination to sell such things as: cat food, stomach powders, detergent, hair restorer, striped toothpaste, aftershave lotion, beforeshave lotion, slimming diets, fattening diets, deodorants, fizzy water, cigarettes, roll-ons, pull-ons and slip-ons. By far the greatest effort of those working in the advertising industry are wasted on these trivial purposes, which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity. In common with an increasing numer of the general public, we have reached a saturation point at which the high pitched scream of consumer selling is no more than sheer noise. We think that there are other things more worth using our skill and experience on. There are signs for streets and buildings, books and periodicals, catalogues, instructional manuals, industrial photography, educational aids, films, television features, scientific and industrial publications and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education, our culture and our greater awareness of the world. We do not advocate the abolition of high pressure consumer advertising: this is not feasible. Nor do we want to take any of the fun out of life. But we are proposing a reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication. We hope that our society will tire of gimmick merchants, status salesmen and hidden persuaders, and that the prior call on our skills will be for worthwhile purposes. With this in mind we propose to share our experience and opinions, and to make them available to colleagues, students and others who may be interested.
Edward Wright Geoffrey White William Slack Caroline Rawlence Ian McLaren Sam Lambert Ivor Kamlish Gerald Jones Bernard Higton Brian Grimbly John Garner Ken Garland Anthony Froshaug Robin Fior Germano Facetti Ivan Dodd Harriet Crowder Anthony Clift Gerry Cinamon Robert Chapman Ray Carpenter Ken Briggs
FIRST THINGS: A DESIGN MANIFESTO We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best. Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help. We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.
Jonathan Barnbrook Nick Bell Andrew Blauvelt Hans Bockting Irma Boom Max Bruinsma Siân Cook Linda van Deursen Chris Dixon William Drenttel Gert Dumbar Simon Esterson Vince Frost Ken Garland Milton Glaser Jessica Helfand Steven Heller Andrew Howard Tibor Kalman Jeffery Keedy Zuzana Licko Ellen Lupton Katherine McCoy Armand Mevis J. Abbott Miller Rick Poynor Lucienne Roberts Erik Spiekermann Jan van Toorn Teal Triggs Rudy VanderLans Bob Wilkinson
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CULTURE JAMMING
WOOSTER ON SPRING
The outside walls of 11 Spring St. have been a public canvas for local and visiting street artists for two decades.
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WOOSTER ON SPRING
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
As many of you now know, Wooster on Spring, the exhibition we have been working on with Elias Cummings, the new owners of 11 Spring Street, will open in Lower Manhattan in less then one week.
The exhibition, a three celebration of 30 years of ephemeral art, will take place for three days only, and then all of the artwork will be destroyed.
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WOOSTER ON SPRING
Recently the building was purchased by developers Caroline Cummings and Bill Elias who will be turning the space into condos. Realizing they had purchased a public gallery, and also because they admired the constantly changing walls, they wanted to give the work a final farewell.
Collaborating with Marc and Sara Schiller who are long time street art documentarians and run the website woostercollec-tive.com, they invited street artisits from all over the world to come and participate in a sort of final salute to the street art of 11 Spring. The three day open house attracted a huge crowd with people waiting in lines that snaked around the block for up to five hours just to get in the door. The doors are now closed to the public, and the renovations will begin on the soon to be luxury condominiums.
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
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WOOSTER ON SPRING
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Friday, December 15th: From 11am to 5pm Saturday, December 16th: From 11am to 5pm Sunday, December 17th: From 11am to 5pm
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WOOSTER ON SPRING
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WOOSTER ON SPRING
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
The artists who’s work will be showcased include Shepard Fairey, WK, Jace, Swoon, David Ellis, FAILE, Cycle, Lady Pink, London Police, Prune, JR, Speto, D*Face, JMR, Blek Le Rat, John Fekner, Bo and Microbo, Above, BAST, Momo, Howard Goldkrand, Borf, Gaetane Michaux, Skewville, Michael DeFeo, Will Barras, Kelly Burns, Abe Lincoln, Thubdercut, Judith Supine, Rekal, Maya Hayuk, Anthony Lister, You Are Beautiful, Gore-B, Elboe-Toe, MCA, Jasmine Zimmerman, Plasma Slugs, Diego, RIPO, Graffiti Research Lab, Txtual Healing, Mark Jenkins, Dan Witz, Iminendisaster, Rene Gagnon, and many other surprise guests.
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Take a photo to this code and free download the photo Galery of Wooster on Spring.
WOOSTER ON SPRING
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
025 //
The location (as if you didn’t know) is 11 Spring Street (Spring and Elizabeth). For the first time in perhaps more than 25 years, the doors of 11 Spring will be open to the public.
WOOSTER ON SPRING
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
ALEXANDRE ORION SKULLS Sﾃグ PAOLO Etching skulls on the side of the tunnel with nothing but water and a cloth.
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ALEXANDRE ORION
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
In the environmental movement, every time you lose a battle it’s for good, but our victories always seem to be temporary and we keep fighting them over and over again. David Suzuki
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Welcome to the world of reverse graffiti, where the artist’s weapons are cleaning materials and where the enemy is the elements: wind, rain, pollution and decay. It’s an art form that removes dust or dirt rather than adding paint.
Some find it intriguing, beguiling, beautiful and imaginative, whereas others look upon it in much the same way as traditional graffiti – a complete lack of respect for the law. Reverse graffiti challenges ideals and perceptions while at the same time shapes and changes the environment in which we live, whether people think for the better, or not.
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Take a photo to this code and free download the video of Reverse Graffiti. Content extra.
ALEXANDRE ORION
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
031 //
ALEXANDRE ORION
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
Hailing from Brazil, Alexandre sees his art work as a way of getting an environmental message across to those who ordinarily wouldn’t listen. A few years ago he adorned a transport tunnel in Sao Paolo with a mural consisting of a series of skulls to remind drivers of the detrimental impact their emissions have on the planet.
The Brazilian authorities were incensed but couldn’t actually charge him with anything so they instead cleaned the tunnel. At first the cleaned only the parts Alexandre had cleared but after the artist switched to the opposite wall they had to clean that too. In the end, the authorities decided to wash every tunnel in the city, missing the irony completely, it seems.
PETER FUSS
Groundswell Talks
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PETER FUSS
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
Peter Fuss reclaims billboards to examine and evaluate present, socially taboo subjects. He’s been a fugitive, a critic, and many other things. Chiefly a painter these days, his work comments on politics, the relationships between religion and authority, flashy religiosity, social problems, and art.
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Peter was generous enough to lend us a few minutes for an interview, after putting in some hard work on his latest project - a re-imagination of the Catholic Stations of the Cross, which forces one to think twice about perceptions of criminality.
PETER FUSS
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
interview
“My exhibition of January 2007 was shut down by the police on the second day after the opening and they seized all paintings, which haven’t been returned to me to this day.”
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PETER FUSS
CHAPTER.01 INTERVIEW
BoldItalic Groundswell Collective
For our readers who aren’t as familiar with your background, can you give us a brief rundown of your life up until today?
When painting or designing an installation, do you start by thinking about the social issue first, or do you put design first?
Regular Peter Fuss
I did many different things, many of them not even worth mentioning. Now I mainly paint. I am most known for works in acrylic paint on paper which I then illegally place in urban landscape. To do that, I use billboards which are plentiful on the streets.
Both design and content are important in art works. To make a piece interesting, both of these must maintain equilibrium and fit well with each other. When one of them starts dominating, the piece becomes boring. I favor work of artists who are able to balance both form and content. To me, it is not only important how an artist speaks, but most of all what he/she is actually saying. I am not excited by abstract works or excessively vivid graffiti with no message. Therefore, the starting point for my work is definitely a message.
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PETER FUSS
CHAPTER.01 INTERVIEW
You work illegally and commercially. Where do you feel most at home?
I set my work in the streets because this helps me show my work to people I would never be able to reach through an art gallery. Besides, street art gives me unlimited freedom. I work when I feel like and do what I want. I don’t have to agree anything with any art gallery manager. I don’t have to keep deadlines, get my ideas assessed or consult my projects. These are the main advantages of working in urban environment. Of course, I also exhibit in galleries if I am invited. The precondition though is that no one will interfere with
my vision. I don’t know if that is a problem in the U.S., but in recent years Poland saw many cases of interfering with works of art on display, we’ve had interventions from the police and local authorities orpieces being withdrawn from display by scared curators. My exhibition of January 2007 was shut down by the police on the second day after the opening and they seized all paintings, which haven’t been returned to me to this day. I was prosecuted by the police for 6 months because of the contents of the billboard I illegally posted on a fence in front of the church and the public prosecutor spoke to the press of the sanctions I could face. Then they discontinued the case as they were unable to find me.
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PETER FUSS
CHAPTER.01 INTERVIEW
Over the past few years, you’ve worked outside of Poland, both in the scope of your work, and literally, attending more events in other countries. For the Laugh of God debuted in London, for example. What brought about the shift for you, and has it changed the way you work? Freedom to travel and taking part in events in various countries is nothing extraordinary in today’s world. I’ve lived in different places and all experiences I had surely influenced me, to a varied degree of course. But it is not a question of place where I live or interacting with different people and cultures that is decisive of the subject matter of my work – it is rather the times we live in that determines my perception of this world. The fact that Americans elected Bush has a direct impact on the life of people outside the U.S. Polish soldiers die on a war started by Bush in Iraq. Thanks to the media and the Internet, photographs of Hillary Clinton crying during the primaries are seen immediately in Poland and in Texas. The fact that Hirst exhibited his diamond skull in White Cube in London was known on the same day in Los Angeles, Kiev and Sydney.
Take a photo to this code and free download the photo gallery. Peter Fuss Work. Content extra.
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PETER FUSS
Many of the installations of yours that I’ve seen are serial. Do you set out to create a series of installations, or do you let the setting determine how far you take a concept?
I don’t create series just because I feel like it. The subject matter determines it. So sometimes it takes a series and sometimes one piece is sufficient.
CHAPTER.01 INTERVIEW
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PETER FUSS
A good deal of your work deals with the Pope. Why the fixation?
What were some of your early influences?
It is not the fixation, it is a reaction to the reality around me. I live in Poland, Pope John Paul II was a Pole and even when he was alive the scale of his worship was really grotesque, and after his death it only intensified. Right now there are about 500 monuments of the Pope in this country. You can see the Pope’s images on mugs, ballpoints, or lighters. The cult of the Pope is a very particular mixture of hillbilly, superficial faith with a large dose of kitsch and bad taste. The Pope is worshipped and loved by masses. But to them, he is more of an idol, a superstar than a spiritual leader, as paradoxically they know very little of his teachings or Papal encyclicals. The cult of the Pope is a very particular mixture of hillbilly, superficial faith with a large dose of kitsch and bad taste.People prefer to have pictures showing the Pope than Jesus Christ. They are also much more sensitive over the Pope than Christ. In Poland, it would be more acceptable to caricature or make a joke on Christ rather than the Pope. The police intervened several times during my exhibition on the Pope after they were called by people that felt offended by it.
As a young boy I lived in a country that was not independent. You couldn’t travel abroad, I even remember the period when it was not possible to travel freely between cities – to do that, you needed a special permit, which was checked by the military and the police. The state-controlled television had only two channels, the press was censored and before playing a concert, every band had to have their lyrics approved by institutions which made sure that no dissent was voiced. It was not a free country. You could go to jail for criticizing those in power. You would see “graffiti” saying people wanted freedom, that those in power cheated, that TV lied. The form was unimportant – it was the message that mattered. Those people expressed their need of freedom, they fought the system by writing politically involved slogans. It was their way to manifest their views and express their dissent against the regime. And they really risked prison. You would see “graffiti” saying people wanted freedom, that those in power cheated, that TV lied. The form was unimportant – it was the message that mattered.
CHAPTER.01 INTERVIEW
Those were my first contacts with graffiti activism. It taught me to be uncompromising and believe in the sense of manifesting myself, my beliefs and ideas. It taught me that it’s important to be true to one’s beliefs and express one’s individuality and independence, even if that might cause serious reper-cussions to me. Therefore, when Harring painted in the subway and Basquiat fulfilled his creativity on Brooklyn walls, I had contact with completely different type of graffiti activism.
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PETER FUSS
CHAPTER.01 INTERVIEW
042 //
Can you tell us about your most recent project? My latest project is a series of 14 billboards showing the Stations of the Cross. In the Catholic tradition (more than 90% of Polish population declare being Catholics) there is this tradition of acting out the Stations of the Cross before Easter. I posted my billboards on the Good Friday at the city train stations so people going to work would see different Stations of the Cross posted on successive train stops. But it wasn’t my goal to make people more spiritual or to promote Christianity among people. Christ was portrayed in the same way as criminals and suspects are shown in media cove-rage: surname abbreviated (”Jesus Ch.”) and face shown in a way so as to make it impossible to identify the person. On one hand this reflected how the media trivialize stories of individuals, but most of all I wanted to point to the fact which many people seem to forget – that Christ was a revolutionary who challenged the existing law and order. Nowadays, people who break the rules and challenge the law and order imposed by the system are being sentenced and imprisoned, notwithstanding the fact that Christ, who also broke the rules, is worshipped.
Take a photo to this code and free download all interview with Peter Fuss.
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MOSS GRAFFITI
045 //
MOSS GRAFFITI
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
Wouldn’t it be lovely if politicians cared about people, architects only wanted to create affordable and environmentally sustainable houses, tabloid papers ceased to concern themselves with the indiscretions of celebrities? I am the first to admit that I live in a dream world and one of my dreams was to create green graffiti from moss. One day on my lunch break at work I noticed some beautiful emerald green moss growing around the base of a bollard in the street and I began to wonder how it grew and why in such random places. A quick internet search later showed me that horticulturist’s of the past had come up with a recipe to encourage the growth of moss to age and add interest to their garden designs. I wondered if this recipe could be used as an environmentally friendly alternative to spray paint.
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Following a number of failed attempts I found that the success of the recipe itself can be very hit and miss and is dependent upon choosing exactly the right location and weather conditions; there is an enormous variety of moss species, each with their individual environmental needs. Although the examples shown here are far from what I have been able to achieve from pure use of the recipe, I have since received tips and advice from many people across the world and it felt like magic when my first design emerged in moss from the milkshake that I had painted. It seems as if others are now experimenting with the idea and new versions of the recipe are evolving and appearing across the internet with regularity. My latest dream is that one day I will walk down my street and discover a beautiful moss graffiti design that a kindred spirit has created.
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MOSS GRAFFITI
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
RECIPE - Several clumps of moss - 1 pot of natural yoghurt or 12oz buttermilk (experiment to see which works best) - 1/2 teaspoon of sugar - blender - Plastic pot (with a lid) - Paint brush - Spray-mister step 1 Moss can often be found growing in damp areas, between the cracks in paving stones, on drainpipe covers or near to a riverbank. Gather several clumps of moss.
step 2 Carefully clean the moss of as much mud as possible.
step 3 Place some of the moss, the buttermilk (or yoghurt) and sugar into a blender and start to mix. This must be done in small phases as the moss can easily get caught in the blades of blender. Keep blending until you have a green milkshake with the texture of a thick smoothie. Pour the mixture into a plastic container.
step 4 Paint your chosen design onto a location with similar conditions to where you originally found it (eg a brick wall or river bank). If you have difficulty finding the right climate in which to grow your moss, grow it indoors on top of a flattened layer of compost in a seed tray (where it can be frequently spray-misted with water) and transplant it outdoors as soon as it has begun to grow.
Step 5 Ensure that your moss design is kept moist by spray-misting it with water regularly. After a few weeks the moss should start to re-constitute and grow.
GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB
Fresh out of graduate school and unhappy doing web design work in order to pay back student loans I applied for a fellowship position at the Eyebeam OpenLab, a non-profit art and technology research and development lab in Manhattan. The application asked for two work samples and a series of questions related to creativity and open source. I applied with Graffiti Analysis and Explicit Content Only, and based on the strength of graffiti and curse words, I was asked to join an elite group with three other hacker types with backgrounds ranging from NASA to MIT. The position came with a small but livable salary
and health insurance, and allowed me to focus solely on my work for what ended up being a period of two years. Admittedly feeling like the wild card choice amongst the group, I quit my job and continued doing projects related to graffiti, open source, and popular culture. After 4 or 5 months I started collaborating with an ex-robotics contractor for NASA named James Powderly. James was an engineer with a tendency towards deviance and when he saw that I was using technology to create graffiti tools for the modern vandal, he quickly dropped everything and lent his engineering, hardware, and materials expertise.
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GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
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GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB
We made a good team and quickly came up with a simple way to combine an LED, a magnet, and a small battery into a new self illuminating medium for graffiti artists. The LED Throwie was our first big collaborative hit and it was shortly after the development of this device that we donned the name Graffiti Research Lab and decided to continue this research.
Early on we decided the G.R.L. would have two main goals: 1) to produce and release cheap, easy, and functional tools for urban communication, and 2) to use graffiti as a medium to spread open source ideals into popular culture. All G.R.L. projects are released for free with detailed HOW TO guides and source code so that people can implement them on their own and for their own purposes.
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
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GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
In an effort to try and trump the success of Throwies we joined forces with British artist, friend, and programmer Theo Watson to create Laser Tag, a system that allows writers to draw at a very large scale onto buildings in light using a small pen sized laser. It is to date our most widely utilized project, with activist groups, graffiti writers, and nerds putting it to various uses in cities as far as Singapore and as close as Rochester.
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GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB
With the wide spread adoption of the Laser Tag project we decided that we should open up the Graffiti Research Lab in the same way in which we had released Laser Tag and LED Throwies. When Esquire magazine approached us in 2007 and offered us 2 pages to do whatever we wanted, we decided that we should use the opportunity to invite everyone to take part in this project. In essence our goal was to treat G.R.L. similar to any other open source project; to make G.R.L. more like Linux. Today James and I continue to collaborate heavily and create new tools for graffiti but we are joined by a loose unguided network of Free download the interview with Graffiti Research Lab.
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
hackers and vandals from all over the world. At times they work with us to create projects together, and other times they release work completely independently and with little contact. G.R.L. is the largest open source initiative that I have ever been a part of, and it’s existence and functionality is a meta experiment above and beyond the individual projects and technologies it creates.
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GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB
CHAPTER.01 CULTURE JAMMING
Currently my creative time is spent between Graffiti Research Lab, which is highly collaborative, and my solo work, which I release on my website ni9e.com. The wheels of the G.R.L. are constantly in motion but at the same time I still enjoy releasing nongraffiti experiments as early and as often as possible. Below is a small selection of these projects.
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Take a photo to this code and free download the chapter.02 Political Art content extra.
POLITICAL ART
GORILLA DESIGN POLITIE
Since October 2006 we have made a visual column on the front page of De Volkskrant, one of Holland’s newspapers.
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SHEPARD GORILLA DESIGN FAIREY
CHAPTER.02 CHAPTER.01 POLITICAL ART
SHEPARD FAIREY ON OBAMA
“I wanted to make an art piece of Barack Obama because I thought an iconic portrait of him could symbolize and amplify the impotance of his mission. I believe Obama will guide this country to a future where everyone can thrive and I should support him vigorously for the sake of my two young daughters. I have made art opposing the Iraq war for several years, and making art of Obama, who opposed the war from the start, is like making art for peace. I know I have an audience of young art fans and I’m delighted if I can encourage them to see the merits of Barack Obama.” Shepard Fairey
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PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS
AWESOME FUTURE
If “politics is the art of the possible,” as the 19th century German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck once wrote, then what sort of politics are Packard Jennings and Steve Lambert proposing with their posters? Movable skyscrapers. A martial arts studio on a BART train. Public transit by elephant back. Commuting by zip line. Transforming San Francisco into wildlife refuge. Turning a football stadium into a farm (and linebackers into human plows). Every one of these proposals for our “awesome future” is patently impossible. Urban planning is a serious business: the domain of accredited academics, trained technicians and pragmatic politicians. What’s proposed by Jennings and Lambert – artists, of all things – is not serious at all.
Which is exactly why one needs to take them so seriously. Enlightenment pieties aside, politics is not solely, or even primarily, about reasoned thinking and rational choices; it’s an affair of fantasy and desire. People are rarely moved to action, support, or even consent by realistic proposals; they are motivated by dreams of what could be. This is something Conservatives understand quite well. It is highly unlikely that we will do away with income taxes or become a Christian nation any time soon, yet this doesn’t stop Republican Party standard bearers from making allusions to these futures. An Islamic Caliphate is not in the offing, but dreams of such a possibility convince a disturbing number of Muslim militants to strap bombs to their chests.
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Not too long ago imagining the impossible was the job of the Left. Conservatives, after all, wanted to conserve what was, while progressives wanted to move toward the awesome future. What were democracy and socialism if not leaps into the unknown? Who, after all, is remembered for proclaiming “I have a dream”? But things have changed. Think of the Liberal uproar a few years back when Karl Rove told a New York Times reporter that the goal of the Bush administration was to “create new realities.” When this senior adviser to the president then went on to describe (and denigrate) Liberals, reporters, policy experts, and the general Times readership as the “reality-based community,” the Left, far from taking offense, adopted this appellation with pride.
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As I write this essay, Democratic candidates for the 2008 presidential election are making appeals to audacious “hope” and unspecified “change,” but the past quarter century of progressive politics has been dominated by the opposite: professionalism, pragmatism, and predictability. And where has all this seriousness gotten the Left? An unprecedented rise of the Right, from Neo-Cons on the Potomac to Fundamentalists from the Bible-belt to Jihadists in the Middle East. A triumph of the dreamers. It’s true, in the USA at least, that some of these dreams are finally being recognized as nightmares, but it’s a bittersweet victory since the Left has little to offer in replacement.
The absurd proposals offered up by Jennings and Lambert have the quality of dreams. The artists explain that they asked experts in the fields of architecture, city planning and transportation for ideas on how to make a better city. These plans were then “perhaps mildly exaggerated.” It is exactly in this exaggeration that the artists’ visions have their political power, and their morality. The problem with the dreams offered up by the Right (and commercial advertisers, who share the technique) is that their fantasies are meant to be taken for reality. Vote for this candidate or buy that product and this phantasmagoric future will be yours. Since these impossibilities can never be delivered, the result is another search for a new fantasy (endless consumption), increased fanaticism in an attempt to will the impossible (terrorism), or disenchantment when the promised future is not deli-vered (witness the current implo-sion of the Republican Party).
What is so inspiring – and honest — about the visions of our future offered up by Jennings and Lambert is their transparent impossibility. A city could become more “green” with additional public parks and community gardens, but transforming San Francisco into a nature preserve where office workers take their lunch break next to a mountain gorilla family? Ain’t gonna happen. And that’s the point. Because it is not going to happen their fantasy fools no one. There is no duplicity, no selling the people a false bill of goods. It’s a dream that people are aware is just a dream.
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Awesome Future Packard Jennings Steve Lambert
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Yet at the same time these impossible dreams open up spaces to imagine new possibilities. The problem with asking professionals to “think outside the box” and imagine new solutions is, without intervention, they usually won’t. Their imaginations are constrained by the tyranny of the possible. By visualizing impossibilities, however, Jennings and Lambert create an opening to ask “what if?” Standing in front of one of their posters on the street you smile at the absurd idea of practicing Tae Kwon Do on your train ride home. But you may also begin to question why public transportation is so uni-functional, and then ask yourself why shouldn’t a public transportation system cater to other public desires. This could set your mind to wondering why the government is so often in the business of controlling, instead of facilitating, our desires, and then you might start to envision what a truly desirable State would look like. And so on, ad infinitum. Jennings’ and Lambert’s impossible solutions are means to imagine new ones.
There is an important place in politics for the sober experts and bureaucrats of the “reality-based community.” These people take the impossible dreams of artists, visionaries and revolutionaries and bring them down to earth, transforming them into something possible. But you cannot start with the possible or there is nothing to move toward (and nothing to compromise with). Otto von Bismarck was famous in his own century for his practice of realpolitik, a hard-headed style of politics that ignores ideals in favor of what’s possible given the real conditions of the times. Our times, defined by the ubiquity of Las Vegas style spectacle and “Reality TV” entertainment, where the imaginary is an integral part of reality, necessitates a sort of dreampolitik. Conventional wisdom may insist that “politics is the art of the possible,” but Packard Jennings and Steve Lambert make a much more inspiring and, ironically, serious case that politics is the art of the impossible.
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Artist & Designer: Christian Nold Creative Commons Christian Nold, 2007 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
Publisher: Southern Exposure San Francisco 415-863-2141
Generous support for this project was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and Southern Exposure’s members.
w w w. s f. b i o m a p p i n g . n e t bio data. tools that allow people to share and interpret their own emotional portrait of a neighborhood and envisions new Emotion Map is a collective attempt at creating an participant’s personal annotations. The San Francisco are represented on this map using colored dots and
MAPPING YOUR REALITY
to their surroundings. The results of these walks which records the wearer’s physiological response invited the public to go for a walk using the device, he conducted intensive workshops. The project devices during the weekdays and on Saturdays when gallery encouraging visitors to stop by and use the worked in the organization’s Mission Street storefront his residency at Southern Exposure, Christian Nold using the Bio Mapping device he invented. During exploring San Francisco’s Mission District neighborhood art project that involved a total of 98 participants Christian Nold’s five-week residency and participatory The San Francisco Emotion Map is the culmination of
San Francisco Emotion Map by Christian Nold
An alternative map of San Francisco visualizing the emotional space of the city
SoEx Off-Site Christian Nold’s Emotion Map project was part of SoEx Off-Site, Southern Exposure’s yearlong series of public art and related programs investigating artists’ strategies for exploring and mapping public space. These strategies can be traced to the Situationist’s derive, the practice of drifting through urban space, and psychogeography, the study of the effects of the geographic environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals. The yearlong series featured eight projects utilizing strategies such as simple acts of walking and note taking, to projects employing high-tech and technological apparatuses as a means to disseminate geographical and historical information. Southern Exposure Southern Exposure is a non-profit, artist-run organization founded in 1974 that presents cutting edge, experimental, risk taking, contemporary art and related programs including exhibitions, artists in education programs, public art projects, panels, symposia, talks, performances and publications. Southern Exposure is a forum and resource center for artists and the public. Programming is recognized for its strength and diversity, creating an accessible and supportive environment for both artists and audiences. No other local artists’ organization its size offers so many programs, with equal support of emerging
BUREAU D´ÉTUDES
The Paris-based conceptual group, Bureau d’études, works intensively in two dimensions. For a recent exhibition called ‘Planet of the Apes’ they have created integrated wall charts of the ownership ties between transnational organizations, a synoptic view of the world monetary game.
Take a photo to this code and free download all the maps of Bureau D´Études.
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Utopian ideas - like ‘Spaceship Earth’ - are round, multidimensional, interrelated: their archetypal map is the Milky Way, the infinite constellations. But rational thinking is instrumental, linear, it distorts: and that’s exactly the problem with the Mercator map, the most common world projection. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, created a ‘Dymaxion map’ to undo those distortions. First the earth becomes a geometric figure, an isocahedron: its 20 triangles are then disjointed and laid flat, so the land masses radiate from a nexus in the north, without splitting continents or enlarging the polar regions. Fuller based his politics on this map: at the ‘67 World Expo
in Montreal, in the dome of the U.S. pavilion, he wanted to lay out a vast Dymaxion projection, and animate it with the most up-to-date statistics, so visitors could watch the flow of resources across the earth - and identify the patterns, the inequalities, the most wasteful and efficient solutions. Delegations from different regions would meet for cooperative sessions, in a problem-solving process called the ‘World Peace Game’. The idea was simple: radical democracy. ‘Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shor-test possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone’.
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Gerardus Mercator was a Protestant scholar from Flanders; he published his map in 1569, to help European merchants plot routes to distant shores. The ability to sail in straight lines led to a capitalist worldeconomy. Oyvind Fahlström was a Swedish artist who spent his childhood in Brazil, and died in the U.S.A. His World Map was painted in 1972, not long after Fuller imagined his utopia. Fahlström’s map recalls the Mercator projection: but the oceans have practically disappeared, the continents are crushed or swollen by the political pressures that the world-economy brings. Space overflows with clashes between the wealthy and the downtrodden, the CIA and the freedom-fighters, the capital-
ists, the communists, the revolutionaries. Fahlström was interested in resistance and excess: by which I mean politics plus overflowing subjectivity, figurative invention. For him, a map was a flat, rulegoverned space for a strict social game; but it also was an open territory for imaginary play.3 In the early seventies he created a series of Monopoly sets (CIA Monopoly, World Trade Monopoly, Indochina, etc.), where political and economic information provides inflexible rules, whatever our passion, whatever our creativity. Yet a work like his Pentagon Puzzle - including a detail of a square earth, wrapped in chains - could also be taken apart, dispersed, its pieces reinserted into another game.
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Fuller’s utopia was not accepted for the U.S. pavilion in 1967: at the entryway, officials placed a huge golden eagle. But today, Internet access has brought tremendous information within our reach. Now everyone can play at mapping resources. ‘The communications aspect of my work can be vastly augmented by the use of computers and by the use of television, video and the miniaturizing trend of cassettes of video communication…. millions of people and multi-billions of dollars are at work in developing just such equipment, personnel and know-how’, wrote Fuller in 1970.4 Part of Bucky’s heritage is ‘osEarth Inc.’, a thinktank and database compiler which organizes World Game sessions on a huge Dymaxion map, as a learning experience for youth. However, that experience is also sold to negotiating teams from Fortune 500 corporations. ‘Global civil society’, with all its complicities, is squarely on the map in 2002.
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Take a photo to this code and free download the chapter.05 Urban Typos. Content Extra.
URBAN TYPOS
PIXO ATTACK
Pixação es una escritura, que nació en Brasil, los orígenes data de los años 60, en firmas de protesta o simplemente como propaganda o de revolución contra una dictadura, mas tarde con la llegada del Punk en los 80 las letras empezaron a evolucionar, y ya usaban los pixadores (Nombre que se le da a la gente que hace letras de este estilo), poco a poco se fue formando en todo brasil, adquiriendo un mismo carácter, pero con diferentes estilos.
Los Pixacaos tienen unas formas muy particulares, forman muchos ángulos y muy alargadas, la razón es muy simple, estas letras estaban pensadas para hacerlas con rodillos, rápidamente, grandes y legibles. de hay esa forma tan particular. No es en 1990 cuando sale el Bom de los pixacaos, formando cuadrillas y delimitando zonas, cada zona estaba delimitada por un grupo de Pixadores. Todas las zonas se empezaron a bombardear, el graffiti de NY no influencio para nada a los Pixadores, continuando fieles a sus principios y desarrollando los pixacaos.
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“A pichação é um reflexo da insatisfação com uma sociedade que produz ilusões o tempo todo: a ilusão do bemestar, do poder e do glamour. Isso não preenche o vazio existencial das pessoas, pelo contrário” Celso Gitahy.
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TTSSS… A Graphic Manifestation Extracting “notes”, from the “historical” diary of a graphic artist – a pixador – was how this book came to existence. Boleta, who put together this volume, is a member of the first generation of Vício, one of the oldest and most active graphic-manifestation gangs in São Paulo. The diary dates from 1988 to 1998. During this period, Boleta gathered signatures, tags*, pixos*, grapixos*, tags*, throw-ups*, folhinhas*, stickers*, symbols and drawings. These personal notes are a testimonial of how Pixo gradually came to life in São Paulo.
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We have reproduced pages of this collection of autographs either in their totality or in detail. The photos were the next step. The book’s photographic work reveals how “Pixographics” defines the chaotic mood of the city, yet allowing us to see through the chaos, where beauty lays - multiplying in extension and height – allover the city. Editora do Bispo sees a genuine, contemporary, 21st century form of communication in Pixação*, where a gifted and original graphic creation emerges. We have decoded alphabets, logotypes, and drawings from the diary. These symbols, if seen detached from their context,
reveal original and sophisticated graphic creations. Ttsss... does not intend to be an encyclopedia of graphic art, decoding all its symbols and nuancing its forms of expression. It is, however, the editorial introduction to Pixo. Ttsss… is an important compilation that shows a specific stream of young artists - artists who predominantly come from an underprivileged social segment. Their social condition is, nonetheless, the ingredient that makes their symbolograms one of the most original urban phenomenons in Brazil – or perhaps in the entire western hemisphere - in recent years.
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The website pichacao.com was conceived having the master’s research ‘Os tipos gráficos da Pichação’ (The graphic types of Pichação) as its root. At first, the content of this site would be limited to this research only but as time goes by many other subjects have been incorporated to it. Therefore, any contribuition concerning to the subject can be sent and if considered relevant it could be added to the website. The website´s author has 3 current productions referring to the subject mentioned. First of them is a digital font named Adrenalina. Click here for more details on this project. You can buy this font by clicking Myfonts.com. The second project is the website PICH(X)AÇAO selected by FILE 2006. This website has the purpose of creating digital experimentation using photos, sounds and types of pichação captured in São Paulo, Brazil as inspiration. Click here to be direct to it. The third one is a selection of some comic commented photos of pichação entitled ‘Devaneios Pichográficos’ (sort of Daydreaming about Pichação). These photos were selected over 1000 photos taken in Mooca (a neighborhood in São Paulo) by the years of 2005 and 2006.
Take a photo to this code and free download the TTSSS... Pixação, The Vastest Art.
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GRAFFITI TAXONOMY The Graffiti Taxonomy studies started in 2004 as part of my masters thesis program. I remember feeling surprised at the time that even in a school full of designers and typographers the dislike of graffiti was adamant and almost universal. My goal with the project was to re-present graffiti in such a way that others would be able to see the beauty and intent behind the characters that I saw when I walked around the city, and to highlight the diversity of styles that could be found in a single character. Because people often don’t understand the letter forms or the intent behind the act, they tend to be fearful of graffiti. By framing graffiti in the language of analysis I aimed to offer people a method for understanding and a way to appreciate these forms that they pass by hundreds of times per day.
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The original idea came from Edward Tufte’s notion of small multiples in which multiple images are shown all at once in an effort to highlight their differences. I was treating graffiti as a data set and photographing thousands of tags in different neighborhoods around New York City. The ‘S’ studies were of graffiti tags sampled from The Lower East Side and the ‘A’ study was sampled from tags in Harlem. Once the photos had been taken, trimmed, and sized, the resulting images were put back up into the neighborhoods in which the original tags were photographed. In the end Graffiti Taxonomy was my attempt at showing people just how much beauty and intent is contained within these cryptic puddles of ink found all over the city.
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ACTIVISM
PACKARD JENNINGS
Packard Jennings and Steve Lambert asked architects, city planners and transportation engineers, “What would you do if you didn’t have to worry about budgets, bureaucracy, politics - or physics?” Ideas from these conversations were then merged, developed and perhaps mildly exaggerated by the artists to create this poster series.
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The Anarchist Action Figure a completely hand-made doll. Packard did everything from the sculpting and painting of the head, hands, and accessories to the sewing of the clothing. The box was illustrated, written, and laid out by Packard and printed at Electric Works in San Francisco. The doll was then taken to various big-box stores around the San Francisco Bay Area and brought to the register to purchase. The results were recorded in an attempt to show the ease of commodification of radical ideology. This concept came out of an exercise in trying to think of anything that could not be commodified. This, as well as other store experiments, came out of a project at Wal-mart from 1998-2000, where Packard made a product line that commented on negative aspects of Walmart’s business practice, such as the Mussolini Action Figure and the Kathie Lee Gifford XS kiddy Tee. Multiples of these products were left in Walmart stores around western New York. A purchase of the Mussolini Action Figure was caught on video. For more on the Walmart Project link here. The doll, a full video with multiple store drops, and other new work by Packard will be on view at Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco from January, 2008.
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ARTIVISM
DAN TAGUE
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The appeal and power of money are the issues at the core of this series. In a capitalist society cash rules everything. Society teaches us that you can buy love, happiness, and status through possessions. You can even right wrongs by taking away a bit of someone’s happiness through fines and lawsuits. Politicians buy votes through claims of lowering taxes, in other words letting us hold on to a little more of status‌ upper, lower, upperlower class. Income tax, sales tax, and property tax all fund the war on terror, war on drugs, war on poverty, war on morality, etcetera. In fact, our consumer pursuit of happiness is the cause and solution for all of these wars.
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So in order to convey the allure of cash, I relied on the aesthetic qualities of the bills. Detailed decorative engravings, masterful portraits and architectural renderings, and elegant fonts create a decadent allure. I further the effect with folds and twists to abstract the imagery and create a collage of wonderful images.
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Folding the bills has another purpose to create narrative. The folds are precise and calculated in order to convey messages amidst the appeal of the abstracted imagery. The messages are political in nature ranging from local issues directed at rebuilding New Orleans with phrases like Unite NOLA and Home is a Tent. The proceeds of this photograph go to UNITY of Greater New Orleans to help out with the homeless crisis in our city. Other messages relate issues of terror and war with State of Fear and Hunt for Oil. While others deal with religion, God is American, and politicians, Trust No One. Then there is the ultimate praise of money in a capitalist world as The American Idol.
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CRAFTIVISM
KNITTA Knitta is a group of ladies of all ages, nationalities, and...gender.
Knitta began in August 2005, when the soon-to-be-Knittas were discussing their frustration over unfinished knitting projects: half-knitted sweaters and balls of yarn gathering dust. That afternoon, they knit their first door handle. Then it dawned on them‌ a tag crew of knitters, bombing the inner city with vibrant, stitched works of art, wrapped around everything from beer bottles on easy nights to public monuments and utility poles on more ambitious outings. With a mix of clandestine moves and gangsta rap — Knitta was born!
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Stereograph is conceived as a magazine about graphic design and visual communication with a thematic approach to information rather than a merely cumulative treatment; in other words, the intention is for each issue to be devoted to a specific theme, which will be developed in a range of materials and formats: graphic projects, articles, essays and so on. The idea is to translate the concept we pioneered with Verb, our architecture magazine, to the world of graphics. This model of book-magazine has worked very well in the field of architecture, both as a tool with which we can research and experiment, and in terms of the commercial success it has achieved.