Berkeley: Billboard Liberation Front at appropriation conference
Our anonymous prankster pals in the Billboard Liberation Front (BLF) will make a rare public appearance at UC Berkeley tomorrow for the Takeovers & Makeovers conference exploring "artistic appropriation, fair use, and copyright in the digital age." The BLF will take the stage at 2:15 for a presentation titled "Media Bandidtry in the Digital Age." The entire conference, which started today, looks fascinating. Takeovers & Makeovers conference (Berkeley Center for New Media), "He who steals my artwork steals... what, exactly?" (Berkeleyan)
Previously on BB:
• BBtv: Google and China's "Great Firewall": Fun with the BLF
• Billboard Liberation Front vs. ATT + NSA
• Billboard Liberation Front: video of AT&T hit<
the latest
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See also: www.signhacker.com
Ths stff s ld, lm nd stpd. ls nsltng t brn clls. Getting rid of billboards is harder than defacing them. Grw p.
Nice!
FLTNDBOAT @1, Criticism is fine, but please don't be nasty. Yes, getting rid of billboards is much harder than altering them. That said, I much prefer BLF's modifications of billboards to the originals.
fltndboat,
You've given one of the Five Principal Examples of Unintentional Irony.
1) Anyone who tells other people to grow up, hasn't.
2) Anyone who tells other people to relax, can't.
3) Anyone who tells other people to get over it, hasn't.
4) Anyone who tells other people to stop whining, won't.
5) Anyone who tells other people to get a life, doesn't have one.
Fltndboat: It is sad that you don't get how beautiful this is, on an art level; on a prank level; on a sheer cleverness level; and even a recycling level. Re-purposing of the soul-less, man-made landscape, stripping it down to fit a greater truth, yet composed of the very cheesecloth of corporate cultural detritus. The billboard as the ultimate postmodern emblem, comprised of layers designed originally to compete with one another but have instead combined into a gestalt that serves as a kind of post-apocalyptic cargo cult icon for mind expansion. And then there's the supreme irony that the very things commonly used to trap the mind (advertising) are pointing the way out of the trap. It is very sad that you can't see how brilliant this is.
Antinous: Nice!
Every time I look at this again it just makes me smile. =D
@Phikus
I think you're reading too much into the pranks. Amusing yes, but they hardly reveal anything about a "greater truth", whatever that is (if there is such a thing), that advertising is "suppressing".
Jetfx: I meant it as a direct comparison, not some lofty platitude. The truth they have created is likely to be more true for the viewer than the original advertising message's assertion that Hillsdale is the beginning of something wonderful.
Fltndboat, do you really remember the Great War?
lol! phikus and antinous=100% win! bless the blf and all the folks who prank there!
you know, living with a new puppy is like living with Mr.Hankie. Good night.
That graffiti on the sign... does that say "Powers also"? It's kind of hard to tell with the glare.
You are driving along, and you see one of these hacked signs, and you see a human touch.
The corporations hire people who sit down and try to design something that will make you look, make you buy. It's all about the money, every step of the way. But the sign hackers are not sitting down, they're designing something and stealthily implementing it at some risk to themselves. Not for money, not for profit, but just to poke the viewer into a bit of wakefulness, if only for a moment.
That's enough to make me smile right there. When it comes down to humans vs. corporations, I root for the humans every time.
reminds me of a slogan in 1987/88 for ASDA -
"one trip and you're laghing"
obviously the billboard hackers quite easlily changed ASDA to LSD