Guerrilla Art

…and then we hit the streets. Phone booths, bus stops, news stands, subway entrances, the platforms of our transit systems, the insides of our trains, the walls of our city, the tops of our cabs, our buses, inside and out, carry private commercial messages to us as we moved through the city. All of these messages carry outdoor advertising to a captive audience, creating desires where there were none before, for products we scarcely need… ...

With his technically masterful, contemporary portraits and his sensational art of destruction, including exploding walls, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils soon became one of the most skilled and talented young artists in today’s urban art scene, for what reason I’m really happy that I did this nice interview with him in 2010! Earlier this year, Gestalten published a fist book about the art of Vhils. Including a preface by Marc and Sara Schiller (who you probably better know as Wooster Collective), the book presents not just Vhils’ popular wall stencils, but also other projects he worked on between 2007 and 2011, like the Nothing lasts Forever and To Have or to Be series, or Scratching the Surface and the Disintegration series. It also includes his major exhibitions at Lazarides Gallery in London and Los Angeles… ...

Somehow corresponding to the war on Mexico declaration by loosely linked hacking group Anonymous I have some interesting news for everyone being interested in hacking… Due to the amazing success, the Netherlands Media Art Institute extended its The Art of Hacking exhibition, which focuses on the artistic side of hacking, until November 26th, showing works by Heath Bunting, The Yes Men, Übermorgen.com and others. As it is written in the press-release, the artists in this exhibition highlight the imperfections of our surroundings and daily lives. The projects subvert, improve on or circumnavigate official systems and practices and offer alternatives. Superficially, hacking is often associated with spreading online viruses and other digital attacks. Officially these criminal activities are not really known as hacking, but as cracking. The real practice of hacking is done based on far more positive and artistic motives. It’s a state of mind and there are elaborate ethical codes within the hacker community. ...

The anti-establishment Voina art collective, notorious for painting a 65-meter penis on a St. Petersburg drawbridge, is bringing their latest protest to cities throughout Europe. The group today displayed a massive photograph of one of their members on Prague’s Charles Bridge to protest the charges against him in Russia* as Radio Free Europe recently reported. It’s another sign against the criminalization of artists, dissidents and political activists in Russia. Watch the interviews with Voina members Yana Sarna and Aleksei Plutser-Sarno to get the whole story!

Brad Downey’s work over the past decade has consistently pitted itself against the sanctioned and the predictable, that’s the first sentence in Brad Downey’s Spontaneous Sculptures book and in my eyes this describes the presented series of urban interventions, transformations and occupation the best way. With this second part of my Urban Art Books & Mags Special I’d like to introduce his latest book to you… Downey was born 1980 into a military family, studied film in Brooklyn and painting in London and lives right now in Berlin. He’s well-known around the globe for his I would say back-to-the-roots artistic works in public space, which are often almost criminal and confusing (like the burning CCTV cameras) but always simply great and inspiring. For that reason, the Spontaneous Sculptures book, with its 160 colored pages, is a great reading for urban intervention enthusiasts. ...

It’s not as great as Dave the Chimp’s skateboard painting device or DTagno’s train graffiti installation tool, but this lovely constructed water calligraphy device by Canadian artist Nicholas Hanna is probably the most effective, inexpensive and eco friendly way for street propaganda I’ve seen so far! The modified tricycle mimics the Chinese custom of writing temporary messages on the road with water. With a computer installed on the handlebars, the water calligraphy device allows the rider to type Chinese characters, which will be transmitted electronically to a set of valves, which release water droplets in programmed patterns… ...

Park(ing) Day is an annual, worldwide event that invites citizens everywhere to transform metered parking spots into temporary parks for the public good. This year’s Parking Day will take place - as I just read on Urbanshit - tomorrow, September 16th! That means, that you all have to take your camp-chairs, some turf, and probably some barbecue equipment to reclaim the streets and public space by reusing parking bays… Since 2005, Park(ing) Day has grown rapidly. The 2010 event included more than 800 Park installations in more than 180 cities on six continents. From Iran to Madagascar, Venezuela to South Korea, the project continues to expand to urban centers across the globe, and participants have broadened the scope of PARK installations to fulfill a range of unmet social needs. ...

As already mentioned, British broadcaster Channel4 showed The Antics Roadshow by Banksy last Saturday evening! The hour-long special charted the history of behaving badly in public, from anarchists and activists to attention seeking eccentrics and was in that way a must to watch for all Banksy fans and every guerrilla art enthusiast… Narrated by Kathy Burke and produced by Jamie D’cruz, The Antics Roadshow examines the stories behind some of the most audacious stunts of recent times and what motivates the perpetrators, from mindless boredom to heartfelt political beliefs. ...

All Banksy enthusiasts are able to look forward to The Antics Roadshow made by Banksy himself! This coming Saturday (August 13th, 2011), the British Channel 4 will show Banksy’s incomplete guide to total anarchy, including the greatest hits of wayward behaviour, sedition and sabotage… Basically I just thought it was a good name for a TV programme and I’ve been working back from there. (Banksy) The hour-long special charts the history of behaving badly in public, from anarchists and activists to attention seeking eccentrics, presenting for example Michael Fagan talking about breaking into the Queen’s bedroom or Noel Godin, who pioneered attacking celebrities with custard pies. ...

Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) developers Evan Roth and Julien Tèchoueyres recently published prototype presentation of their latest laser tagging intervention which is simply called Laser Knuckles! Laser Knuckles is a devise which combines several laser pointers, some more hard- as well as software to write texts, which can be made visible using long-exposure photography, on any imaginable surface… Evan Roth, who invented the Graffiti Markup Language, is the major head behind the worldwide Graffiti Research Lab. Again he showed what’s possible when you combine artistic aspirations and technical knowledge! ...