new_stereograph_react by joao alberto

stereograph 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. 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.

what a perfect, perfect world!!! by James David, Groundswell Collective So much order and planning, so many grids, routines and systems. 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 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 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, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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.

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.” We work from an unscripted reality, and alleviate 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!

index

Culture Jamming Peter Fuss Graffiti Research Lab Wooster on Spring

First Things First 1964 : 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

First Things First 2000: 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 6

diets, fattening diets, deodorants, fizzy water, cigarettes, rollons, 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.

Political Art Dan Tague Craig Foster

Activism

Mattes Evan Roth

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 uncomfort-

able 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.

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Public Intervention Wish you were here

Pixação Gostavo Lassala - João Wainer

Graphic design has predominately been, and still is, the tool which beautifies, communicates and commodifies a set of ideas, ideals or products within various tenets of our social and economic relations. Unfortunately, it is fair to say that this creative tool is overwhelmingly used in an economic/commercial sense to raise profit margins and material wealth for the benefit of a select clientele. While graphic design lends its talents outside of the commercial realm in the form of an informative and communicative visual language, and in academic or self-authorship, research-based practices employed by the corporate body or state-sanctioned by capitalist / socialist totalitarian governments in order to perfect and reinforce their hegemonic positions. And while design academia can wax poetic about the virtues of graphic design and its specialised visual language the design industry practitioner, whether one chooses to acknowledge his/her role or not, must realise that their labour is nothing more than the harbinger of consumerism, used in the service of monolithic capitalism and all of its ails. Without graphic design those who sustain these ills of society have no face, no visual identity, no point of reference, and most importantly, no effect. 7

ULTUR AMMIN

Peter Fuss

Graffiti Research Lab

Wooster on Spring

Peter Fuss Interview by James David

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. 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. 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? 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. GC: When painting or designing an installation, do you start by thinking about the social issue first, or do you put design first? PF: 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, idea. GC: You work illegally and commercially. Where do you feel most at home? PF: 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. “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 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 or pieces 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. GC: 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, . What broughtor you, and has it work? 14

PF: 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. GC: 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? PF: 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. GC: A good deal of your work deals with the Pope. Why the fixation? PF: 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 inter-

vened several times during my exhibition on the Pope after they were called by people that felt offended by it. GC: What were some of your early influences? PF: 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 statecontrolled television had only two channels, the 17

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. 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 repercussions 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 GC: Can you tell us about your most recent project?

PF: 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 coverage: 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.

Graffiti Research Lab GRL

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. 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 strain of research as a team. 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. 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. 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 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 itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existence and functionality is a meta experiment above and beyond the individual projects and technologies it creates. 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 non-graffiti experiments as early and as often as possible. Below is a small selection of these projects.

GRL Graffiti geek Los famosos throwies de Graffiti Research Lab. Sí, amigos. Por fin, los tenemos. Nos ha costado un par de meses, varias llamadas a Nueva York y varios euros tragados por el Skype. Pero después de todas esas aventuras, nos encontramos con Evan Roth, uno de los miembros fundadores de Graffiti Research Lab. Desde principios de año nos hemos interesado por estos geeks de la calle, que han aplicado la tecnología al bombardeo urbano. Con tecnologías accesibles, herramientas más propias de la ferretería que de la tienda de bellas artes, ingenio y participación, este colectivo ha revolucionado el arte del graffiti. Para empezar, han aportado luz, con el magistral uso de las bombillitas LED, en sus Throwies (luces envueltas en cinta adhesiva que se pueden lanzar sobre cualquier superficie) o el electro-graf, un graffiti con pintura magnética donde se pega un display de estos LEDs. Abiertos a todo tipo de colaboraciones y con una filosofía de “código abierto”, de difusión de las tecnologías y procesos

que surgen de su labor de investigación, su objetivo es dar a los ciudadanos herramientas para reclamar el entorno urbano y arrebatárselo a las corporaciones que se han apropiado, de manera implacable de nuestras ciudades. En Ars Electronica explicastéis que tú habías hecho investigación sobre el graffiti, y que tu compañero, James Powderly, trabajaba en una compañía robótica antes de fundar Graffiti Research Lab. ¿Cuáles eran tus líneas de investigación en la Academia Parsons? La idea de hacer investigación académica sobre este tema suena muy interesante… Sí, en la Parsons trabajé en un proyecto llamado Graffiti Analysis, que era una obra de software modificado que registraba y representaba los movimientos y gestos de los graffiteros mientras pintan. Traté la disciplina como una fuente de datos más que como un producto final y trabajé con writers de renombre de la zona de Nueva York, como Hell, Jesus Saves, Avone o Katsu. Parsons Design and Technology tiene mucho interés en los proyectos sobre tecnología que interactúan con la ciudad. Josh Kinburg creó Bikes Against Bush (Bicis contra Bush) un año antes de que me graduara, y ahora yo estoy dando un curso llamado Geek Graffiti, que explora directamente cómo “hackear” los espacios urbanos. ¿Cómo empezaste a interesarte en el desarrollo de nuevas técnicas? Me mudé a Nueva York en 2003 e inmediatamente me enamoré con todo el graffiti que veía en el camino entre mi apartamento en Brooklyn y mis clases cerca de Union Square. Mis habilidades, sin embargo, no tienen nada que ver con el dibujo y la ilustración, sino más bien con el diseño y el código así que empecé a utilizar estos intereses para aplicarlos en el street art. ¿Cuál es vuestro background y cómo lo aplicáis en GRL? ¿Cómo empezó todo? ER: Antes de GRL, yo estaba acabando mi tesis sobre, precisamente, explorar el uso de la tecnología dentro de esta comunidad. Hice una solicitud para una colaboración en el OpenLab de Eyebeam, basada en este trabajo. Fue así como conocí

a James y nació Graffiti Research Lab. James aportó su background en robótica, hardware e ingeniería a mis conocimientos, digamos que más orientados a la pantalla. Un día se nos ocurrió envolver una luz LED, un imán y una batería con cinta adhesiva, la lanzamos a un paso elevado y el resto es historia. En el blog del proyecto, hemos visto varios artistas colaborando con GRL, ¿quiénes son los miembros del colectivo y cómo puede un artista empezar a colaborar con vosotros? James y yo constituimos el núcleo de Graffiti Research Lab, pero trabajamos con muchos colaboradores, graffiteros, artistas, activistas, programadores, compañeros de trabajo, estudiantes, amigos, etc en cada proyecto según la base de éste. Estamos abiertos a trabajar con cualquiera que le esté interesado y activo con la idea de utilizar la ciudad como su patio de recreo personal. Es muy interesante cómo lleváis a la calle lo que podríamos llamar filosofía open source, que nació con la programación. De hecho, OpenLab, donde trabajáis, se define como “un hogar para los artistas y hackers pioneros en la creatividad open source”. ¿Cómo empezastéis a sacar esta cultura digital y de código abierto para llevarla a la calle? Por ejemplo, compartís vuestros “descubrimientos” en el blog, en revistas, en talleres… Bueno, las actitudes open source hacia la construcción de objetos físicos ha estado siempre ahí, en la forma de instrucciones del tipo “cómo hacer…”, lo ves en la cocina, en la calceta, el bricolaje, etc. Lo que hemos intentado es compartir los métodos qué hemos ido encontrando, creando, para hacer cosas con tecnología específicamente en la ciudad. Crear y modificar herramientas es también una parte de la cultura del graffiti desde sus orígenes, en forma de marcadores caseros y modificaciones en capuchones de los sprays (por nombrarte algunos). Queremos que a la gente les gusten nuestros métodos de organizarnos, que innoven más allá de lo que nosotros les hemos presentado y creen nuevas formas en la ciudad que sean detonantes de cambios y debates reales.

Hacéis un montón de cosas con luces LED, como los throwies, una de vuestras “herramientas” de graffiti más célebres. ¿Cómo y por qué empezastéis a usar esta tecnología? Las luces LED son un medio que los anunciantes han usado durante décadas para expandir sus mensajes en la ciudad. Son baratas, gastan poca energía y son muy visibles. Nuestro uso de LEDs es un intento de demostrar que cada uno puede usar esta tecnología tan simple para difundir otras ideas más allá de la publicidad y el consumo. La participación es, a menudo, necesaria en vuestras acciones (los throwies lanzado por mucha gente a la vez, como en Nueva York o en los tranvías de Linz). Últimamente, también habéis creado un par de obras con un cierto mensaje de denuncia. Me pregunto si tenéis una cierta agenda o si planeáis crear más obras activistas… Yo veo el graffiti como una acción social o política, así que en cierto sentido veo que toda la obra de GRL es política. A veces, de hecho, siento que cuando es explícitamente político

puede perder su poder de persuasión. El street art es más fuerte y político cuando es original, creativo e inspira a otros a romper con leyes similares. Por ejemplo, cuando una imagen de Banksy de dos policías besándose puede ayudar a que una generación entera de vándalos artísticos, una pancarta donde ponga “BUSH LIED PEOPLE DIED” (“Bush mintió y gente murió”, popular lema anti-Bush) puede quitar las ganas de salir a la calle a trabajar. El graffiti político es el que convence a los soldados para hacer la revolución.

GRL está teniendo un impacto fabuloso en internet, y también estáis haciendo un montón de “bolos” últimamente. ¿Por qué creéis que se ha generado esta interés? Puede que quizá hayáis dado un paso con las técnicas de graffiti que todos estaban esperando.. Y, hablando de giras, ¿vendréis a Barcelona? Nos encantaría tener una de vuestras obras por aquí… Creo que el éxito se debe al interés de la gente en crear y usar tecnologías para cosas que nos fortalezcan… Además creo que a la gente simplemente le mola la música que ponemos en los vídeos. Sobre lo de ir a Barcelona, estamos hablando sobre la posibilidad de ir al OFFF en mayo. 38

Wooster on Spring Exhibition

The outside walls of 11 Spring St. have been a public canvas for local and visiting street artists for two decades. 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 woostercollective.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. December 9, 2006 Wooster On Spring - The Countdown Begins 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. 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, Mi-

chael DeFeo, Will Barras, Kelly Burns, Abe Lincoln, Jr, Thubdercut, Judith Supine, Rekal, Maya Hayuk, Anthony Lister, Stikman, You Are Beautiful, Gore-B, Elboe-Toe, MCA, Jasmine Zimmerman, Plasma Slugs, Diego, RIPO, The Graffiti Research Lab, Txtual Healing, Mark Jenkins, Dan Witz, Iminendisaster, Rene Gagnon, and many other surprise guests. On Sunday, December 17th at 3pm there will be a panel discussion with many of the artists attending. 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. Our advice - Come early and come often. Will the building be open to the public to view the artwork inside? Yes. The current plan is to open the building for three days in mid--December as an open house with panel discussions, film screenings, djs, and private walk-throughs. Because of the logistics, we won’t be publishing the exact days and times until just before the event. Who are some of the artists that are painting inside the building? Artists involved in the show include WK, Blek Le Rat, Shepard Fairey, JACE, Bo and Microbo, D*Face, Maya Hayuk, Lister, Prune, JR, RIPO, Thundercut, Skewville, Elboe-Toe, Jasmine Zimmerman, You Are Beautiful, Dan Witz, Judith Supine, Above, Rekal, Gore-B, FAILE, The London Police, Rene Gagnon, Gaetane Michaux, Darkclouds... and many, many other surprise guests. 54

Will the artwork stay up in the building and outside after the event? No. In December and January, the new owners of the building will begin restoration and construction and all of the artwork be destroyed. Can anyone paint inside the building? No, unfortunately not. All of the artwork inside the building is being organized and curated by the Wooster Collective. As we juggle space and access to the building, artists are being invited each day up until the actual event.

Craig Foster

OLITICA

Craig Foster Political Protest Art

Craig Foster in 2002 started creating a piece a day based on impressions from the news and it grew into an art blog of sorts with about 2000 images. The pieces intentionally add light relief to the political message conveyed. More importantly the work is an indictment of the direction that the United States is being taken and the ready acceptance of war and the notion that military intervention is an effective means of diplomacy between America and the rest of the world. Craig Foster has been an artist since the late 80’s when at the beginning of the first Gulf War he began making protest art, never considering that the work would be relevant in the new millennium. More importantly the work is an indictment of the direction that the United States is being taken and the ready acceptance of war and the notion that military intervention is an effective means of diplomacy between America and the rest of the world. Craig Foster has been an artist since the late 80’s when at the beginning of the first Gulf War he began.

In 2002 started creating a piece a day based on impressions from the news and it grew into an art blog of sorts with about 2000 images. The pieces intentionally add light relief to the political message conveyed. More importantly the work is an indictment of the direction that the United States is being taken and the ready acceptance of war and the notion that military intervention is an effective means of diplomacy between America and the rest of the world. Craig Foster has been an artist since the late 80’s when at the beginning of the first Gulf War he began making protest art, never considering that the work would be relevant in the new millennium. More importantly the work is an indictment of the direction that the United States is being taken and the ready acceptance of war and the notion that military intervention is an effective means of diplomacy between America and the rest of the world. Craig Foster has been an artist since the late 80’s when at the beginning of the first Gulf War.

CTIVIS

Mattes

Evan Roth

Mattes Interview

An Interview with Franco and Eva Mattes aka 01.org Nitewalkz: Can you please introduce yourself and your work? Franco Mattes: We’re a duo known as 0100101110101101.org. What we do is called Media Hacking, NetArt, Culture Jamming or whatever, but none of this is a perfect description of our work. Nitewalkz: Your biggest project so far was Nikeground. Can you exlain the idea of “Nikeground”? Franco Mattes: “Nikeground” was a performance which we started in September 2003 in Vienna in collaboration with Public Netbase. The basic idea was to claim that Nike was pulling out a new Guerilla-Marketing-Super-Large-Skilled-Media-Campaign named “Nikeground”. The campaign consists of buying and renaming famous places in all major cities of the world. So you would have Piazza Nike as well as Plaza Nike, Nike Beach, Nikestreet, Nikestraße and so on. The first of the places to be renamed was the historical Karlsplatz in Vienna. We claimed that in January 2004 the Karlsplatz will be renamed to Nikeplatz. We initiated a big marketing and media campaign. We had a massive flyer distribution in the public transports and a “NikeStyle”-Website: nikeground.com. But the main attraction was the Nike-Infobox, an eight-ton high-tech highly-designed container with a floor elevator. Eva Mattes: It had to be very fancy to make it more believable that Nike started the campaign. Franco Mattes: The container was installed in the middle of Karlsplatz and three fake Nike representatives worked in it and we’ve had a telephone line for feedback. Then we started spreading the news of the renaming and the installation of a big monument in the middle of the Karlsplatz: The Nike “Swoosh”. 36 meters long and 18 meters tall. This really pissed of the citizens of vienna because they didn’t want that huge plastic monument shit in the middle of their main square. The city council quickly denied their involvement in the campaign, claiming the reason, that since World War II

it is impossible to rename streets and places in Austria unless the names look similar to other names. To avoid messing up the mailing system. The citizens became angry for different reasons: Some argued about Nike exploiting people in sweatshops all around the globe, others wanted a public referendum for such a big decision. But the main reaction was surprisingly: “If the city can make a lot of money out of it… let them do it!”, or: “They own everything anyway, so why don`t we let them pay for it? Maybe we can exchange the renaming of the square with less advertisement in the streets.”.

Eva Mattes: And then there was Nike’s reaction. The first day we opened this big container they came to check who’s behind the action. They issued a press release which was stating that they’ve nothing to do with that action. We tried to explain them, that we were doing a cultural project and that we liked the idea of using the Nike-Logo, because it is omnipresent. We see it everyday since we are born, so why can’t we use it for a cultural project? Everyday landscape is full of logos and many artists are using landscapes for their work. Nike didn’t agree with this arguments. We received a legal injunction that said that we have to withdraw or erase any reference to Nike’s name and logo within 72 hours otherwise we they’ll start a legal battle about 78.000 Euro against us. We decided to erase nothing until the end of the month. At the end there was a trial and their request was refused, because our attorney could explain that we did a cultural project and we’re not another company fighting against Nike. So they had to accept the possibilty for people to use their symbols in art and cultural works. 95

Nitewalkz: What reaction did you want to provoke? What was the purpose of the action? Franco Mattes: We didn’t do it to provoke any reaction. We never do things to obtain a direct reaction. We wanted to trick an entire city and any reaction was welcome. Probably we expected to have more protests and not: “Nothing is ever happen in Vienna. At least it is better than nothing…” Nitewalkz: Let us talk about Darko Maver? Who was he? Franco Mattes: Darko Maver was a project we started in 1998 and which went on to the year 2000. It was about creating a non-existing artist and meaking him popular. We created the character of Darko Maver, who was born in former jugoslavia with a very stereotypical biography. The perfect artist: He lived a totally bohemian live, no parents, no art schools, prob-

lems with drugs and with authority in general and so on. So we could be shure that such a character would attract the attention of the media world immediately and they would jump on him as the new “mode artist” from eastern-europe. The fictional Darko Maver was building very realistic murder scences with mannequin puppets – in a kind of splatter-movie style – which he leaves in public spaces (train stations, public toilets, hotel rooms etc.). He sets up this very violent and crazy and realistic situations waiting for unaware people to discover them and to provoke a media reaction. No mannequin ever existed and no Serbian newspaper ever reported Darko Maver’s performances. The images, that have been believed as “lifesize mannequin” are actually photos of real crimes, horrifying images of corpses freely available on the

Internet. The interesting and sick aspect of the story was the matryoshka-like structure. What Darko Maver was doing in the fiction - creating realistic scenes to provoke media reaction - was the same thing that we – 01.org - were doing in the reality. We were showing Darko Maver’s work in exhibitions and galleries, we faked press coverage and curriculums … what ever you need to do to push the career of an artist. When we finally thought that we had enough of him – the media attention was on the top – we killed him, because that would raise his attraction even higher. As you know a dead artist is better than a living one. When we were invited to the biennale in venice in 1999 we told the public that Darko Maver never existed. It was of course a big scandal in the media and art world. But I really want to make clear that Darko Maver was not a prank against art institutions, galleries or magazines at all. Most of this people knew that it was fake an they collaborated with us. The project was more to prove that art can be created and planned and even be succesful if you’re doing the right things with the right people in the right way. We wanted to dismantle the way an artist is promoted and created by turning these mechanisms upside down... Nitewalkz: Your latest project is United We Stand. What is it about? Franco Mattes: “United We Stand” is a promotional campaign for a non-existent movie. The “movie” 96

is called “United We Stand” and the subtitle is: “Europe Has A Mission!”. The campaign started with the production of a poster, which features five actors. Two of them are Ewan McGregor and Penelope Cruz. On the center of the poster is a big european flag and under the flag you can see to armies fighting each other: The Chinese and the US-Army. This is a situation that seems predictable in the near future for many analysts. They state

that in about ten years the United States will have to declare War on China. Due to economical reasons. The screenplay of the movie is about the european president who immediately calls for a task force: five high-trained specialist known as the german, the italian, the english, the spanish and the french guy. This task force has the mission to avoid the global war between China and the USA without brutal force. European Style!

We’ve already promoted the movie with a huge poster campaign in Berlin, Brussel, Barcelona, New York City, Bangalore (India), Vienna and Bologna. Eva Mattes: It is supposed to be a european propaganda movie - produced by Europe - to upgrade its dusty iconography. A big budget movie to make people feel the “European Spirit”. Nitewalkz: Which Is? Franco Mattes: I`ve no idea. And nobody knows Eva Mattes: That’s the question of the movie. We want people to think about what Europe should be. Should it be as patriotic and strong as the USA? Or should it show the cultural variety and diversity of Europe? Franco Mattes: When you start asking people to “Act as a European!” or “Be European!” they don’t know how to act. There is no european stereotype. You’ve got german stereotypes - blonde hair and drinking beer -, italian guys – good look-

ing and always trying to cheat anybody – and english – red head and always drunken – and so on. But there is no unifying european stereotype and maybe it’ll never be. But why? Think of Peter Fonda in “Easy Rider”, think of his leather jacket with the european flag instead of the US-flag on it. It’s amazingly stupid. Or: Jasper Jones. Imagine his work with the european flag. This makes people laughing. But again, why? Are we laughing because we don’t need a stupid brand like the USA? Or are we laughing out of frustration, because we don’t have this kind of imaginery and we’re not able to build it? Or are we laughing because we know that one day we’ll have such kind of imaginery: A large superpowerful nation instead of small independent countries? Eva Mattes: The project is a piracy of hollywood propaganda movies like “Saving Private Ryan” or “Black Hawk Down”. Those movies are badly camouflaged as action movies which shows their intellectual poverty. Our movie is more ambigiuous: Somehow it is making fun of these movies and on the other hand it asks the question: What do you want to be? What does Europe want? Nitewalkz: Is your work meant to be Communication Guerilla? Franco Mattes: You can call it what you want: Communication Guerilla, InfoWar, Hacking Art, Media Activism, Media Hoaxing or simply pure art. Nitewalkz: Are you both artists or some kind of left-wing political activists? Franco Mattes: (laughing) None of that, but rather artists. Nitewalkz: So how would you describe yourselves??

Franco Mattes: Usually we say we are spectators because we are staging paradoxical situations and then we’re sitting in the armchair and watch what happens. Nitewalkz: Situations! Do you know the book Society Of The Spectacle by Guy Debord? Are you influenced by the Situationist International? Franco Mattes: I’ve never read that book and none of their publications and i’m really surprised that in europe our work is always beeing compared to the Situationist International. We just don’t know them and we’re too beeing part of that movement. Eva Mattes: We’re much more influenced by pop culture and… Franco Mattes: …american drugs…, people, pranksters like Joey Skaggs or the KLF of the mid-90ies, Dada, Futurism… Nitewalkz: KLF considered themselves as Situationists… Eva Mattes: The KLF are wrong! Nitewalkz: Would you agree with the opinion that billboards and advertisements are a pollution of public space? Eva Mattes: In a way… since it is there and you can do nothing against it. The only way to survive that pollution is to use it in a creative way. Franco Birkut: I’m used to them. I was born in this society and

it did not come from the moon or another planet. It’s like TV, playstation, techno music etc. It doesn’t bother me. This is my world. I’ve never been in world without billboards and i also can’t imagine a world without trees. Maybe I would like it, maybe not. Nitewalkz: Do you think the way information is distributed is affecting the content of that information? Franco Mattes: No. I think that McLuhan was basically wrong. The medium is NOT the message, but the message is the message. Tools are overvaluated. There is too much discussion on tools and the way information is distributed and perceived. 99

Evan Roth Graffiti

Evan Roth Typographic Illustration

Typographic Illustration was created in 2003 and was one of the first projects I completed while in graduate school at Parsons in NYC. The idea behind the project was to create representations of lyricists using the text from compositions they had written. You can’t talk about lyrics without talking about Biggie, so my first (and favorite) illustration was created using the lyrics of the song Juicy. As the song plays, the words form over time to dynamically create a likeness of the Notorious B.I.G. This project marks a point in my creative development where I was beginning to get suspicious that maybe these things I was making were “art”. The distinction may seem small, but at the time I was an ex-architect turned self-taught web designer and Flash programmer, and my view of artists was that they were just bad designers that didn’t care about type faces. I had developed a small following on the ni9e site during the very early days of experimental Flash work and began attending and speaking at Flash conventions where this kind of work was highlighted. The Typographic Illustration project was both my most successful Flash based projects and the last time I would ever seriously use this proprietary medium for the production of creative content. In 2003 the project ended up winning both the Flash Forward Film Festival, and the Flash In The Can Festival. I would continue to present at these festivals but this project marked the last time I ever really felt a strong connection to that community.

Moving to New York City and attending graduate studies in the arts had introduced me to a whole new world of net art, data visualization, new media art, computer programming, and graffiti. Looking back, however, I still see a clear connection between Typographic Illustration and my current interests in the incorporation of art and open source into popular culture. I learned how to write code by reading Joshua Davis’s early flash examples, which he released freely for all

to use. In an effort to give back to the community that had taught me so much about design and programming, I decided to release for the first time source code of my own. In December of 2004 I wrote a tutorial for Computer Arts magazine explaining how the technique was created and included the code and project files on the accompanying CD*. Releasing work for free and with rap music are both still very much at the core of my current practice.

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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.

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.

T.S.A Communication by Evan Roth

T.S.A. Communication is a project that alters the airport security experience and allows the government to learn more about you then just what’s in your backpack. Thin 8.5 x 11 inch laser-cut sheets of stainless steel comfortably fit in your carry on bag, simultaneously obscuring the contents you don’t want the TSA to see while highlighting ideas you do want them to see. Change your role as air traveler from passive to active.

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Wish you were here

UBLI

Wish you were here Postcards From our 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 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. 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.

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 predict136

ability. And where has all this seriousness gotten the Left? An unprecedented rise of the Right, from NeoCons 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 United States 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 de-

livered, 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 delivered (witness the current implosion 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. 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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RBA YPO

Pixação

Gostavo Lassala and João Wainer

Pixação

Gostavo Lassala and João Wainer

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

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

of how Pixo gradually came to life in São Paulo. 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

- 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. Title: “ TTSSS… pixação, the vastest art, sao paulo, brazil ” Organized by Boleta (Daniel Medeiros) Photos: João Wainer and Boleta. 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 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. Click here to see the photos.WHAT IS PICHAÇÃO? Pichação is an act of transgression, a way of getting people´s attention by the fact that it normally uses non-conventional and non-authorized surfaces. It has no rules concerning form or content, although it may occur sometimes when a specific mark can be seen spread out the city as a stamp.

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