If you are like me, you constantly walk around with your head down looking at the ground. If you are like me and walking through campus with your head down looking at the ground and noticing the stencil advertisement for Zipcars painted on the sidewalk of campus.
Since my later posts about street art I understand how the most of you feel about the subject, and I can only guess that the most of you are not pleased about this. I am also not please about this, but I can tell you it is for a different reason.
While the issue of public space and vandalism is always an issue when talking about street art I feel there is another issue at stake. While capitalistic America is run by multimillion dollar political campaigns backed by the corporations of America they are allowed to post there advertisements everywhere no matter what the cost, they have now found another angle to get us with.
The battle of that street art and culture jamming vs. advertisements are the visual battles of what is viewable in the public eye. Much like advertisements, there is no avoiding street art when it is placed on the streets, and both advertisements and street art are at a constant battle for space and attention.
The image I have posted is a stencil that I found in the quad earlier today. It is just a small, possibly 12X12 inch. painting on the sidewalk as an advertisement for Zipcars. Now the irony is that and advertisement is now in the style that some of the most popular street art is in, it is like a Packer fan and a Bear fan living in absolute harmony.
I suppose my main question of this is where is the time frame for where and when advertisements are available to the public eye? Will there be a cap to the limit advertisements will be allowed in the public?
Another problem I can see with just this one stencil is how often has the advertising world taken something from the art world and used it into the ground? Not to seem like a Banksy worshiper, but another quote from Banksy is as follows:
"The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little." -Banksy
I dont' know...i don't think this really bothers me. Good for Zipcars, in fact, that they are finding unconventional ways to get their stuff out there. I also am a zipcar member...
ReplyDeleteUGH. This whole sidewalk painting thing is getting out of hand. What happens when sidewalk painting people start painting over each other? Or what if everybody decides its OK to spray paint their ad on the sidewalk? Have you ever seen a sidewalk after a kid attacks it with a box of sidewalk chalk? It gets BUSY and what were once cute drawings become a huge visual distraction. But sidewalk chalk washes away. And kids are generally encouraged to use the walk in front of their OWN houses. These ads are all over the place cluttering up our sidewalks and frankly I'm surprised if DePaul doesn't go complain to ZipCar about painting on the quad.
ReplyDeleteI think some of these advertisements are really cool looking (like the Stanley Cup on Versus ads that are sprayed on some sidewalks) but I don't think that it should be encouraged. Our sidewalks are going to become underfoot billboards and frankly will start to look cluttered and horrible if people keep putting more and more 'art' on them.
I agree with Katie. I saw a girl spraying one in front of DePaul and I almost stopped her. I think it sucks that they are branding the sidewalk. I'm all about street art, but this is actual defacement.
ReplyDeleteVery uncool. I will not be pleased to see this, especially since one of the reasons, the main reason really, that I stare at the sidewalk is to give my brain a relief from all the visual shit that is constantly inundating us.
ReplyDeleteI think this bothers me less because it's just one. But if it started to catch on and everyone was advertising this way, making the sidewalk cluttered like everyone else is saying...I'd be annoyed.
ReplyDeleteI have never noticed any of the logos on the school grounds. It would be interesting if they started making rules about ad space in public, interesting quote though...
ReplyDeleteYea I've seen them. I actually saw one closer to the loop last week. Its pretty annoying to me for a number of reasons. One being because it seems like the street art craze is starting to go more commercial and that would mean people would be paying to use public space as ad space. I just think that there is a place for advertising and I don't think I want to see an ad on the actual sidewalks of where I walk.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen any of these logos, and I am undecided about them.
ReplyDeleteI havent seen them but I dont think it bothers me, it would however if it gets out of control and its everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI've already seen this used by another company - something about a chess piece and Versus - and I hate it, too. Not only is advertising too ubiquitous, the use of so-called "guerrilla" advertising commercializes culture that comes from anti-consumerist culture. Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but it puts a bad, bad taste in my mouth when I see major companies co-opting DIY ethic and warping it into yet another selling tool.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone here goes into advertising: be creative, be clever, send a message, by all means. But please let the kids busy raging against the machine have their media - the media THEY made for THEIR expression - untainted. There's nothing worse than hearing protest songs used in a car commercial.
I am a little conflicted by this. When I was in my community college's activities board, one of the ways I would spread the word about an event was by chalking up the quad with info and directions. However, with the chalk it was temporary and for one day only. The reason I did that was because people look at the ground, and if they weren't seen my flyers I wanted them to know about the event (mainly b/c a lot of people complained about Harper College never having events and we had a TON!)
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I understand where everyone is coming from. I had a lot of success because we had a lot more attendees after doing that and people liked it. But I have not seen these Zip Car ads. But I agree with everyone in that if everyone uses the sidewalk as a billboard then there's no telling what's next.
I'm also pretty sure DePaul gave them permission because they work together so students can get discounts.
In all honesty I don't really feel like the whole sidewalk ads will really become a permanent fixture, seems more like a fad. Another factor is the type of ink that is used, is it really permanent or temporary?
ReplyDelete