Monthly Archives: November 2016

No Ad Day, Street art, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard

Advertising Shits In Your Head and No Ad Day

Two interesting things are coming up which relate to issues often raised on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour.

The first is that this Sunday we celebrate No Ad Day.  Street artists have often cited an anti advertising stance to justify their actions, the essence of the message being “who gave advertisers permission  to hijack public space to bombard us with their advertising messages, we are reclaiming our visual landscape”.  No Ad Day takes the view that advertising is pernicious, not necessarily truthful, overwhelming and a mechanism for artificially stimulating demand in the absence of a natural imperative to acquire based on need.  So this Sunday, in cities around the world including New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid and undoubtedly many more, there is possibly going to be some subtle action to reduce the quantity of advertising.

No Ad Day, Street art, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, bus stop, bus

via No Ad day website, photographer unknown

Look out for blank advert spaces, hijacked advert spaces, subverted adverts and perhaps more.   If an ad looks a bit odd, check it out it might just have been hit by someone engaging in a No Ad Day activity.

 

On the street art tour we often delight in discovering subverted adverts and hijacked advertising spaces, we will certainly be keeping our eyes peeled in London this weekend.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, fly posters, H.O

H.O subverts a collection of illegal fly posters, Nov 2016, photo Dave Stuart

London, Shoreditch, Street art, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, bus stop, bus

Hogre puts art where advertising used to be, June 2016, photo Dave Stuart

 

London, Shoreditch, Street art, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, flyposter

Lady Gaga D’Faced, photo Dave Stuart

The results of stripping adverts from the urban landscape can be quite impressive, in 2010 the vast quantity of illegal billboards all over Athens, from the Centre to the Port of Piraeus in one direction and out to the airport in the other suddenly whited out.  Whether this was driven by economics or principal, or even possibly but more remotely actually just a clamp down on illegal advertising, it made a huge difference to Athen’s appearance.

Athens, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, buff

Athens, 2010, photo Dave Stuart

 

The second thing I want to let you know about is a rather interesting publication with the awesome title “Advertising Shits In Your Head”.  This is a book to be published by Dog Section Press.

London, Shoreditch, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, bus stop, bus, Advertising Shits in your Head

Advertising Shits In Your Head, photo via Dog Section press

Advertising Shits In Your Head combines theory and practice in one short book about the modern subvertising movement.  It will certainly be an interesting read for the curious.  At present a crowd funding campaign is very close to raising the target needed to proceed to publication, if you or someone you know might be interested in this book, do look a bit closer.  Funding deadline date is 28th November, the day after No Ad Day, funding is 85% towards target.

Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, bus stop, bus, Advertising Shits in your Head

Advertising Shits In Your Head, photo via Dog Section press

You can in effect pre order the book by contributing just £5 to the funding though I’m looking forward to rocking a Dog Section Press Teeshirt on some tours next Summer.

 

One evening early last month when the campaign was first launched I luckily caught this particularly relevant subverted advertising lightbox in Islington.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, Advertising, ad busting, ad hijacking, ad subversion, billboard, bus stop, bus

by @ProtestStencil, photo by Dave Stuart

On the web page for the funding are many other recent updates of subvertising actions,

98428-1-2d7567a23d1854b6f04a67479268c097

photo via Dog Section Pres, photographer unknown

My friends at VNA magazine, my favourite zine got this ace interview from Dog Section Press Editor Vyvian Raoul about the ideas and manifestations of this new wave of artivism.   So, check out the crowdfunding page now and help push the appeal over the line (update – now 93% funded).

Feature Photo via No Ad Day

Photo sources cited, if any photographer would like a credit for their photograph please drop an email


Very Nearly Almost Zine Interview

When I started regularly photographing street art over a decade ago wandering the streets of East and West London with my mate Sam “HowAboutNo”, not so many people were interested in the culture or doing this kind of photography.  George MacDonald was!  He created a photo based printed fanzine called Very Nearly Almost, usually abbreviated by its audience to VNA.   I remember George wandering up and down the queues for urban art shows outside Black Rat Press and The Leonard St Gallery giving the zines away.  Even though I had not started uploading any of my photos onto the net at the time of those early issues in 06/07, my gut reaction was “print is dead”, George proved me completely wrong.

London, Shoreditch, street art, Very Nearly Almost, George McDonald, Greg Beer, zine, magazine, interview, Cheffo,

VNA Issue 3 – CarTrain makes the cover!

 

Fellow contributing  photographer Matt “Cheffo” Strutt has a very interesting interview with Editor in Chief George and Art and Design Director Greg in which they describe how the mag developed from being a photocopied stapled freebie to the lush feature filled publication it is today and how the culture has evolved in the years they have been covering it.

 

I have been proud to contribute photographs and the occasional article to VNA since about issue 6 or maybe 7, despite which Very Nearly Almost is still going strong.

London, Shoreditch, street art, Very Nearly Almost, George McDonald, Greg Beer, zine, magazine, interview, Cheffo,

Very Nearly Almost through the ages

 

The ethos behind the magazine (high quality photography) was touched upon in this article which appeared in the Evening Standard in 2010, down in the bottom corner a shot of the cover of Issue 11 features though the caption at the top, “street art’s NVA” does rather expose some poor sub-editing at the Eeny Stannit.

London, Shoreditch, street art, Very Nearly Almost, George McDonald, Greg Beer, zine, magazine, Evening Standard

Evening Standard, 13 Sep 2010

Being print based, many of the fascinating interviews with artists featured in VNA can only be found in the pages of a real copy you hold in your hands but fortunately many previous editions are still available as very reasonably priced back issues through the VNA shop .   VNA  is well worth considering for a subscription, Christmas is coming you know.

 

Interview Link: http://gcasfm.com/blog/very-nearly-almost


From Shoreditch To Mexico

Over the years walls in Shoreditch have been made to look a little more arty thanks to Mexican street artists.   Some visit, some like Pablo Delgado were long term residents.

London, Shoreditch, Mexico, street art, tour, Notimex, Pablo Delgado

Pablo Delgado, 2011

Pablo’s trademark street art were tiny figures pasted at the bottom of walls with accompanying shadows painted onto the pavement, you really had to keep your eyes peeled to spot these.

London, Shoreditch, Mexico, street art, tour, Notimex, Pablo Delgado

Pablo Delgado, 2013

His characters looked like they lurked secretively in a Borrowers sized world on the fringes of our civilisation of giants.

London, Shoreditch, Mexico, street art, tour, Notimex, Pablo Delgado

Pablo Delgado, 2011

Pablo followed many themes in his characters including pimps and prossies and often arrangements were quite surreal.

London, Shoreditch, Mexico, street art, tour, Notimex, Pablo Delgado

Pablo Delgado, 2013

Another Mexican artist who visited these walls in October 2015 and who’s enduring work still delights the tour is Mazatl.

London, Shoreditch, Mexico, street art, tour, Notimex, Mazatl

Mazatl

Mazatl was accompanied by three other artists from Mexico, Said Dokings, Acuro and Fusca who we see in this piece painting in collaboration with Mazatl.

London, Shoreditch, Mexico, street art, tour, Notimex, mazatl, Fusca, Collaboration

Fusca/Mazatl collaboration

London, Shoreditch, Mexico, street art, tour, Notimex, Said Dokins

Said Dokins

The flow has been reversed in a curious way by journalist Marcela Gutiérrez Bobadilla who experienced the Shoreditch Street Art Tour a couple of weeks ago. Marcela has written a lovely  article in the Mexican publication Notamex, which can be found here: http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2016/992898.html.

 

Marcela also created this very interesting short video clip:

 

Our public tours are conducted in English but if you would like a street art tour in Spanish, drop us a line as we can help you with a private tour (email info@shoreditchstreetarttours.co.uk)

All photos: Dave Stuart