Reclaiming Public Space

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Reclaiming Public Space

Although it can seem that the invasion of advertising in public space is inevitable, there are media activists who 'baldly reject the idea that marketing – because it buys it's way into public space – must be passively accepted as a one-way flow of information.' (Klein, 2000, p.281) Countercultural networks of culture jammers, billboard liberators and some street artists, use various subversive strategies to intervene against the invasive presence of outdoor advertising. They exhibit the strong belief that the streets should not belong to corporations. The act of culture jamming has been widely influenced by the Situationists practice of détournement, which used techniques to divert or subvert the context of imagery to create new meanings. Adbusters, the anti-cosumerist media foundation, is described as the culture jamming 'headquarters' with an objectives to change 'the way information flows, the way corporations wield power and the way meaning is produced in society.' (adbusters.org) Kalle Lasn, co-founder of Adbusters, claims that the process of subverting advertisements can be used as a powerful tool which 'cuts through the hype and glitz of mediated reality and momentarily reveals the hollow spectacle within' (Lasn, 1999, p.131) Culture jamming can therefore be used as a protest to expose the truths which are hidden behind the spectacle of advertising. A common jamming technique involves using humour and parody, with the simple alterations of billboards 'Coca-Cola becomes Killer-Cola, Shell becomes Hell, Just Do It becomes Just Screw it' (Bell; Goodwin, 2012, p.6) Adbusters, as an example, notably created a campaign (Fig. 5) which featured the fictional character 'Joe Chemo' to humour and 'unco...

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...allow the public a response, and that the city walls are spaces which should be reclaimed and used as places of free communication. A simplistic style, however, thought provoking example (Fig. 6) of a piece of work by Banksy was a blank billboard which featured only the painted words: 'The joy of not being sold anything.' This ambiguous billboard provokes thought about how the saturation of outdoor advertising has become a normal part of the everyday environment, it is usual and controversial to see a billboard as anything other a than a means to encourage consumerism. Subversive strategies share the same objective to actively reclaim space which is invaded by advertisements.These activists challenge and reject the notion that the public should have to ask permission to have areas free from commercialisation and rather protest for social change by seizing space back.

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