Corporate Graffiti is Wack - an invitation to discuss
I don't know if any of you have noticed these little buggers thrown up on walls in your favorite urban stomping grounds and hipster hot spots...
...but I sure have (oh yeah, the chop shop on Lincoln Blvd = major hipster hot spot). But seriously they're all over Venice, Silverlake, SaMo and also apparently the Mission, South Street, Williamsburg, etc.
Suspicious that they all popped up so fast? Suspicious of their presence on otherwise graffiti-free walls, their ad-agency-esque saturday morning appeal, and the fact that they all include kids with fucking PSPs in their hands?
That's right. If this sounds a little bit like a marketing campaign to you, you're right! These are ads. They are corporate graffiti. Pieces commissioned by Sony's ad agency, thrown up by Sony employees, on walls that have already been cleared and paid for by Sony.
This isn't just lame (which it is). And it isn't just an unoriginal and ulitmately kinda sad attempt by a giant corporation to be hip and down and fresh and chill, in the parlance of our times (which it also is). It begs the question of what is graffiti/street art, and what does it mean.
I argue that street art, in all its myriad forms, from glass scratching to poster art to ad busting, is about popular expression in the public space. Critically, it is about in some way affecting the panoptic and hyper-commercialized urban built environment with personal expression and even resistance. It is one (of many) ways that people (aka, the people) can continue to create truly popular (aka, 'of the people') culture in our overly commoditized and 'pop' culture and reclaim public spaces.
Corporate 'graff' contradicts these in that it is not of the people (it is of the corporation, the culture industry, the 'man') and, as long as its paid for as an advertisement it is sure as hell not reclaiming any public space (but rather is commoditizing even more of it). (There is room for debate about whether IBM's illegal 2001 Linux tagging campaign is equally dubious).
Now, according to Ryan Singel's great piece in Wired (to whom also go photo creds), Sony believes they are totally rad and that it, like, totally makes sense man because the PSP is a fuckin "disrupter product." Yeah man! Fuck yeah, I can fuckin watch a movie on the bus! Take that MTA, take that Hollywood! Lets disrupt some shit!
Actually, though... an interesting point. Can portable products, even if they are corporate commodities, offer users some greater level of popular agency? As Sony spokeswoman Molly Smith explains in Singel's piece, "With PSP being a portable product, our target is what we consider to be urban nomads, people who are on the go constantly." So at this level, it isn't really any more empowering than a laptop, but perhaps the potential is there...
What if some future PSP could allow users to leave messages, pics or 'virtual tags' in the ether over certain places for other users to pick up (see: urban tapestries), or allow them to hack digital advertisements in the world around them, or even just hack the net. Certainly products that leave a great deal of control, meaning and usage up to the whim of the everyday user have popular potential.
But Sony isn't there yet, nor in my humble opinion is any corporate advertising, whether it looks like graffiti or looks like a bilboard.
The ad wizzards who think they get it and love Sony's approach betray just how out of touch they are with statements like this, quoted in the Wired article, regarding the perceived backlash against Sony's work: "I wonder if that's a San Francisco phenomenon," Fawkes said. "I know there's a certain mindset there." No shit. Lets show 'em there's a "certain mindset" in lotsa places.
Originally posted elsewhere by me in December 2005
Read the Wired article, with more pics, by Ryan Singel here.
Check out 'Social Matrices: A Think Tank for Culture' here.
Check out Sony's PSP website here.
...but I sure have (oh yeah, the chop shop on Lincoln Blvd = major hipster hot spot). But seriously they're all over Venice, Silverlake, SaMo and also apparently the Mission, South Street, Williamsburg, etc.
Suspicious that they all popped up so fast? Suspicious of their presence on otherwise graffiti-free walls, their ad-agency-esque saturday morning appeal, and the fact that they all include kids with fucking PSPs in their hands?
That's right. If this sounds a little bit like a marketing campaign to you, you're right! These are ads. They are corporate graffiti. Pieces commissioned by Sony's ad agency, thrown up by Sony employees, on walls that have already been cleared and paid for by Sony.
This isn't just lame (which it is). And it isn't just an unoriginal and ulitmately kinda sad attempt by a giant corporation to be hip and down and fresh and chill, in the parlance of our times (which it also is). It begs the question of what is graffiti/street art, and what does it mean.
I argue that street art, in all its myriad forms, from glass scratching to poster art to ad busting, is about popular expression in the public space. Critically, it is about in some way affecting the panoptic and hyper-commercialized urban built environment with personal expression and even resistance. It is one (of many) ways that people (aka, the people) can continue to create truly popular (aka, 'of the people') culture in our overly commoditized and 'pop' culture and reclaim public spaces.
Corporate 'graff' contradicts these in that it is not of the people (it is of the corporation, the culture industry, the 'man') and, as long as its paid for as an advertisement it is sure as hell not reclaiming any public space (but rather is commoditizing even more of it). (There is room for debate about whether IBM's illegal 2001 Linux tagging campaign is equally dubious).
Now, according to Ryan Singel's great piece in Wired (to whom also go photo creds), Sony believes they are totally rad and that it, like, totally makes sense man because the PSP is a fuckin "disrupter product." Yeah man! Fuck yeah, I can fuckin watch a movie on the bus! Take that MTA, take that Hollywood! Lets disrupt some shit!
Actually, though... an interesting point. Can portable products, even if they are corporate commodities, offer users some greater level of popular agency? As Sony spokeswoman Molly Smith explains in Singel's piece, "With PSP being a portable product, our target is what we consider to be urban nomads, people who are on the go constantly." So at this level, it isn't really any more empowering than a laptop, but perhaps the potential is there...
What if some future PSP could allow users to leave messages, pics or 'virtual tags' in the ether over certain places for other users to pick up (see: urban tapestries), or allow them to hack digital advertisements in the world around them, or even just hack the net. Certainly products that leave a great deal of control, meaning and usage up to the whim of the everyday user have popular potential.
But Sony isn't there yet, nor in my humble opinion is any corporate advertising, whether it looks like graffiti or looks like a bilboard.
The ad wizzards who think they get it and love Sony's approach betray just how out of touch they are with statements like this, quoted in the Wired article, regarding the perceived backlash against Sony's work: "I wonder if that's a San Francisco phenomenon," Fawkes said. "I know there's a certain mindset there." No shit. Lets show 'em there's a "certain mindset" in lotsa places.
Originally posted elsewhere by me in December 2005
Read the Wired article, with more pics, by Ryan Singel here.
Check out 'Social Matrices: A Think Tank for Culture' here.
Check out Sony's PSP website here.
posted by g at
4:04 PM
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