Projects tagged "Advertising & Consumerism"

How Selective Enforcement of Illegal Advertising Laws Punishes Creative Activism
Practitioner:
The Illuminator, Occupy Museums
Date:
Sep 29 2014
The enforcement of city and state law pertaining to graffiti, advertising, and other signage has enormous power to visually shape public space. In New York City, enforcement is heavily skewed to ignore illegal commercial advertising, while simultaneously aggressively targeting graffiti and, in some cases, symbols of dissent.
Vangardist HIV+ Magazine
Practitioner:
Vangardist
Date:
May 4 2015
HIV is still among the top 10 leading causes of death in the world, ranking sixth with around 1.5 million deaths each year. Around 35 million people are currently infected with HIV, and cases are worryingly on the rise—it is far from old news. Determined to change this, a magazine has embarked on a bold new campaign in which 3,000 copies will be printed using ink mixed with HIV-infected blood.
How Song Dong's "Waste Not" Elicited Much Sympathy
Practitioner:
Song Dong, Zhao Xiangyuan(Song Dong's mother)
Date:
Jan 1 2005
Song Dong's Waste Not consisted of a single installation comprising over 10,000 commonplace, domestic items of daily life that had been used and amassed by the artist’s mother (Zhao Xiangyuan) over fifty years.
Say No To Body Shame
Practitioner:
Mounica Tata
Date:
Aug 18 2020
Mounica Tata launched Doodleodrama as an online journal to improve representation for her body type in mainstream media. “I’ve always been an overweight person and bullied and shamed for the same. Only fairly recently I’ve learned to make my peace with my body. My own journey with my body inspired/continues to inspire me to talk about it.”
Reverse Graffiti
Practitioner:
Paul 'Moose' Curtis
Date:
Nov 29 2008
Reverse graffiti is form of street art that involves carving into the dirt and dust that surrounds us. Artists subtract from a surface in order to create a negative image within the positive, often quite dark layer of grime.
Mind Over Media
Practitioner:
Media Education Lab
Date:
Nov 1 2017
Mind Over Media is a crowdsourced educational platform that contains diverse examples of contemporary propaganda on a wide range of social, political, economic and environmental topics.
Blixel: (Re)stock Image Collection
Practitioner:
Kenya Robinson
Date:
Apr 21 2021
The purpose of this project was the permeate stock images with more depictions of Black people. Stock images are usually easily found and utilized, showcasing people doing everyday activities or scenes. To boost representation of Black people in this particular image field, were left out, so the artist chose to recreate popular stock images with Black models to showcase representation and shed light on the lack of diversity in these photos.
FTSE - A British Anti-Capitalist Rapper
Practitioner:
FTSE
Date:
Aug 26 2015
"FTSE" is Birmingham-born producer and rapper Sam Manville. As an anti-captialist, he though it would be funny to take the name of the British stock market index (Financial Times and Stock Exchange), but he also jokes the acronym stands for "Fuck The System, Ennit.”
Big Tech CEOs Become 7ft Capitol Rioters
Practitioner:
Sum Of Us
Date:
Mar 25 2021
As tech leaders faced tough questions from Congress, SumOfUs, an 18 million member advocacy organization, was right outside with a larger-than-life installation of the January 6th Capitol riot that shows the role Big Tech played in sparking the insurrection.
Calling Big Brands of Soda
Practitioner:
GreenPeaceUSA
Date:
Apr 5 2021
"This is the video that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé don’t want you to see. The big brands want you to believe they are taking steps to reduce single-use plastic BUT they are actually working hand in hand with the fossil fuel industry to produce even MORE! Watch now to learn that the actual “Story of the Bottle” has devastating effects on our health, planet, and communities!
A Legal Guide Helps Artists Make and Protect Protest Art
Practitioner:
Harvard University’s Cyberlaw Clinic and metaLAB
Date:
Jan 22 2018
Harvard University’s Cyberlaw Clinic and metaLAB have created a free guide for making protest art while navigating intellectual property law.
Controversy in the Wild Kingdom of Couture
Practitioner:
Kylie Jenner
Date:
Jan 25 2023
PARIS — Ten a.m. on a frigid Monday morning, the first day of the couture shows, and Kylie Jenner was strutting through the marble halls of the Petit Palais trying to find her seat for Schiaparelli, shoehorned into spiky stilettos and a black velvet one-arm gown, a full-size tawny lion’s head jutting from the side. It was as if Aslan had taken a break from Narnia and stuck his muzzle through a time-space continuum under her armpit.
'Pharma - Greed - Kills'
Practitioner:
ACT UP, london
Date:
Apr 2 2016
April 2nd, 2016, organized by members of the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power faction in London, five activists stormed London's Gilead Pharmaceutical offices and frantically disrobed to reveal painted backs spelling out the word 'Greed." About 30 other activists rallied outside the building.
Watermelon Sunday - 100% Plant Based Cookout
Practitioner:
Watermelon Sunday
Date:
Jun 11 2019
Starting in 2019 out of the East Harlem neighborhood in New York, Watermelon has served as recurring series of cookout-themed events that are 100% vegan, while also centering BIPOC businesses. People from all over the city come to the reoccurring events to enjoy different vegan recipes and learn about different aspects of the vegan lifestyle and activism. Brands and organizations are welcome to participate upon coordination with the organizers.
Television Commercial for Communism
Practitioner:
The Propeller Group
Date:
Jan 1 2012
Television Commercial for Communism: https://vimeo.com/129592556
Respect The Living Too
Practitioner:
McCann Tirana
Date:
Jun 1 2014
An advertising agency creates a one-time action for traffic safety, then uses documentation to generate awards and free promotion for their company. Did traffic fatalities actually drop after this was done once? Their Press Release doesn't make mention. From McCann's Press Release:
Angered by Unsafe City, Gurgaon Women Call for a ‘Girlcott’
Practitioner:
Gurgaon Girlcott
Date:
Apr 4 2012
India Ink [Blog] The New York Times Global Edition April 4, 2012 By Neha Thirani The women of Gurgaon, angered by the recent incidents of violent crimes against women in the outsourcing boom town, are calling for a “Girlcott.”
Nike and ‘For Once, Just Don’t Do It’
Practitioner:
Nike
Date:
May 29 2020
On Friday night, as U.S. television screens burned with images of peaceful protests turning violent, Nike released a new socially conscious ad calling on Americans to do something quite different than the brand’s usual call to “Just Do It.” Instead, one of the nation’s leading athletic apparel companies called on individuals to not turn their back on the painful issue of racism in the United States.
The Art of Heroin Bags
Practitioner:
VICE
Date:
Mar 28 2012
Heroin sold in the northeast, specifically in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey tends to come in little glassine baggies. The art comes from the individual and unique "stamp" on said baggie sold to a user.
Supercopy LaCoste
Practitioner:
SUPERFLEX
Date:
Mar 30 2002
By adding screen print with the wording ‘SUPERCOPY’ on to copies of LaCoste polo shirts bought at a street market in Thailand SUPERFLEX turns a copy product into a Supercopy – a new original. As a result, LaCoste took legal action against SUPERFLEX.
UK Brandalism Campaign
Practitioner:
Various Artists
Date:
May 12 2014
From Glasgow to Brighton the streets of the UK looked a little different the morning of Monday 5/12/14. In 10 cities around the UK guerrilla install crews have been swapping over 300 ads with art works, creating the largest advertising takeover in world history.
Nikeplatz
Practitioner:
Coachella Valley
Date:
Sep 1 2003
In September 2003 the news went out nationwide: Karlsplatz, one of Vienna's main squares, is soon to be renamed Nikeplatz. Apart from the new name, it appears that a huge monument in the shape of Nike's famous "Swoosh" logo will be built in Nikeplatz. Needless to say, it is all fake.
NYC Street Art Map
Practitioner:
Huffington Post
Date:
Jan 26 2014
Huffington Post put together a digital, interactive map of some of the so-called best and brightest street art collections. Street art is important because it allows artists, usually from the community where the street art is taking place, to interact with the community and bring color/brightness to the environment.
Street Advertising Takeover - Artist turns billboards into democratic spaces
Practitioner:
Jordan Seiler
Date:
Apr 3 2016
"Two weekends ago, a loose network of these artists and activists, under the name Subvertisers International, launched their first global effort to reclaim our shared public environment from its monopolization by commercial media. The demand was not for better or more truthful advertising, but to imagine what a city would look like when the stories we told ourselves in public space reflected a democratic voice.
Dismaland
Practitioner:
Banksy
Date:
Aug 20 2015
“He describes it as a “family theme park unsuitable for small children” – and with the Grim Reaper whooping it up on the dodgems and Cinderella horribly mangled in a pumpkin carriage crash, it is easy to see why. Banksy’s new show, Dismaland, which opened on Thursday on the Weston-super-Mare seafront, is sometimes hilarious, sometimes eye-opening and occasionally breathtakingly shocking.

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