Ted Rheingold has the scoop on an awesome surveillance camera billboard prank at the corner of 5th and Howard Streets in San Francisco. Here’s his initial write-up, follow-up report and Flickr photoset.
But this is one of those pranks where the jokes on us. The prankster is using superlative to remind us the society and culture we have come to accept: surveillance cameras on all sides; facial recognition reviews; and even nation-wide car journey monitoring. If you can’t see a giant surveillance camera out your window, I don’t think you’re looking hard enough.
UPDATE: SFGate: Culture Blog! did some more research and discovered the project behind this and other billboards is the Double Take a Billboard Project, in conjunction with New Langton Arts, The Creative Work Fund and Clear Channel Outdoor (shocking, I know). Here’s Ted’s follow-up.
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- Quick Lobotomy Billboard Prank by Fauxreel
- Collectors: Undercover Surveillance of Art Collectors by Jill Miller
- Hine’s Felt Camera Camera Case Stop-Motion Animated Video
- Skullphone Digital Billboard Alterations in Los Angeles
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Rereading one’s quote really makes one wish for an editor. By ’superlative’ I meant ‘visual hyperbole’ or the literary usage of ‘gigantism.’
I think it’s part of this art project: http://www.doubletakebillboards.com/
… funded (in part) by Clear Channel.
Dang! Not a prank, commissioned art. I like it still, but, we’ll, that’s one more canvas we have to triple guess how it’s being used.
WHO OWNS THE WALLS?
In Portland, Oregon- Clear Channel is suing the City in order to stop a one-year-old Public Art Murals Prgram that givers permits and funding to community murals (you know, the kind painted by actual artists and regular people).
There will be a trial to determine the outcome of this public art issue, beginning on April 12, 2006- Clear Channel (formerly AK Media) vs City of Portland.
Clear Channel successfully argued in Multnomah County Circuit Court back in 1998 that murals and other “signs” (billboards, painted wall ads, wall wraps) all had to be regulated by the City’s sign code (a 100 page book of rules on what can be put on a wall).
In effect, after Clear Channel won in 1998- public art no longer existed.
All we had left was “signs”.
This Langton Arts collaboration is a sickening example of Clear Channel’s continued usurping our right to artistic expression.
Is there no corner of our civic life that does not need a “gift” or a stamp of approval from a multi-national mega-billion dollar-a-year corporation?
Clear Channel seems to be moving strongly toward the goal of “providing us with our free speech rights”. And this is exactly what Clear Channel CEO’s have said about similar “public art” projects that they have done in Portland (including the Not A Crime graffiti art campaign- a billboard project done in conjunciton with Rumblefish).
Clear Channel must be stopped!!!
For more on this, see: indefenseofart.blogspot.com
Update on Clear Channel v City of Portland (murals) trial:
The court proceedings have been postponed until October 2, 2006.
Artists will continue to paint throughout the summer!
Thank you Rene! Really shows where the power lies.. Clear channel wants to tell us what is good, what is culture, what is art.
If you think about it, if it looks real enough to passing criminals, it could actually act as a deterrent.