Add Art and The Future of Online Advertising

by Art Fag City on November 7, 2008 · 25 comments Events

 addart-demo.gif

I’ve seen the future of online advertising and it has something to do with Dr. Zizmor, 1968, and Mel Bochner.   More specifically, it has to do with, Ben Coonley, Jason Corace, Charles Gute, Brian Kennon, Elke Lehmann, Jessica Slaven, Maya Schindler, and Sheilah Wilson, the 8 artists I invited to create work for The Future of Online Advertising, a show I put together for Eyebeam’s Add-Art project.   To view the exhibitions you’ll need to install Add-art, a firefox add-on that replaces ads with art.  Once you’ve done that, the add-on randomly selects one of the 8 artist’s “exhibitions” in the show, and as you surf, replaces ads with art.

I suspect there will be a few readers who can’t be bothered to either install the add-on or figure out what it is, so I’ve included a few screenshots below to give you all a sense of the show and how it works.  I have also included a curatorial statement after the jump.  Please note that add-art unrated will be arriving shortly.   This way those who don’t need to worry about work safe environments can have their ads replaced by Brian Kennon’s bare-breasted woman with a carefully manicured pussy and a dog on a chain.

A special thanks to Add Art’s brain child Steve Lambert.  He was an immense help putting this show together!

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Brian Kennon’s, Monster Love on Time Out NY

Curatorial statement and screengrabs after the jump!

The Future of Online Advertising, a group exhibition featuring the work of Ben Coonley, Jason Corace, Charles Gute, Brian Kennon, Elke Lehmann, Jessica Slaven, Maya Schindler, and Sheilah Wilson appropriates a familiar turn of phrase in the same way the participating artists in this show draw upon pre-existing cultural material. Taken from the similarly named annual New York online advertising conference, the title means to broadly describe a utopic form of advertising; which is to say, in the future, all advertising is art. It is aesthetically challenging and engaging, it is inventive and it is smart.

Providing a great initial model for discussion Coonley simply replaces online advertising with ads he likes better. Choosing the New York subway ad celebrity Dr. Zizmor, Coonley’s animated gifs build Zizmor’s web presence on his behalf. Sheilah Wilson also prefers to replace ads with other ads, drawing upon the Internet’s version of carving “for a good time call” in a tree, bench or bathroom stall. Using the anonymous commentors on Craigslist’s Missed Connections, a website where people try to locate people with whom they’ve shared desire, Wilson photographs plaques with selected appropriated text. “Last name, I believe it to be Sparks,” reads one particularly amusing pun, no doubt selected as a line that might double as advertising for a car parts.

Reflecting on the form of the ad itself, Charles Gute’s 17 Standards (After Bochner), references Mel Bochner’s Standard series in which the artist used black tape and butcher’s paper to measure its own dimensions on a wall. Similarly minimal, Gute’s pixels serve more or less the same purpose; the re-iteration and articulation of form describing the most essential quality of the ad. By contrast, Jessica Slaven’s quotation of well known literature is less an homage to these thinkers than a practice of subtle alteration to their work. Flawlessly photoshopping the titles of well known books, artist Martin Kippenberger’s No Drawing, No Cry, humorously becomes No Drawing, No Cry, No Tear, while Susan Faludi’s Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women becomes lashback: The Undeclared War Against American Women.

Also working with literature, Jason Corace, uses the Modern Library’s ten greatest English Language Novels list as the basis of his work. Compressing the text from each book and animating those images together in a 1 second loop, the result resembles a typographic permutation of television snow. And yet, while beautiful and imbued with meaning the piece doesn’t change the functionality of space; the context and format of ads almost inevitably reduces some of the most important knowledge in the world to visual noise. Corace has titled his piece after all the books in his exhibition, ”¨ulyssesthegreatgatsbyaportraitoftheartistasayoungmanlolitabravenewworldthesound
andthefurysonsandloversthegrapesofwraththewayofallfleshmobydick.

While government representatives may not represent such perfected knowledge Elke Lehmann’s Flag series, describes American identity using the flag as a garment. Appropriately timed for the United States elections, Lehmann places the red white and blue motif — frequently unwoven or torn and against exposed skin — revealing an erotic undertone to American nationalism. Similarly political, Maya Schindler’s text based images speak to the message of Change presidential-elect Barack Obama built his campaign around, while Brian Kennon’s Monster Love refers to the 1968 presidential election year in which Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated along with Martin Luther King Jr.. Bringing together images of fucking pigs, Alice Cooper, a shock rocker known for his use of the Ouija board, and a bare breasted woman with her dog, Kennon’s exhibition proposes a future cultural reaction to political changed based on the carnage of 1968. It was after all, only four years after an election that until this one just past, drew the largest number of voters in American history.

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A screenshot of Ben Coonley’s, Thank-You Dr. Zizmor.  His work replaces Bergdorf Goodman ads on the Times front page. 

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Sheilah Wilson’s Missed Connections text at the Sun

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This screengrab captures a fraction of the noise in Jason Corace’s animated gifs compressing the text of 10 of the world’s  greatest novels.

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Maya Schindler‘s Everything is Here replacing the ads on Time Out NY’s site.

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Jessica Slaven’s untitled exhibition at the Miami Herald

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Elke Lehmann’s Flags on Time Out NY

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Charles Gute’s, 17 Standards (After Bochner) on the New York Times. The screengrab unfortunately doesn’t capture the teeth chattering gif

{ 22 comments }

Saul Chernick November 8, 2008 at 8:38 pm

Although I’m having some technical difficulties getting Add Art to work I really enjoy the overall concept and look forward to seeing where this project goes.

Saul Chernick November 8, 2008 at 3:38 pm

Although I’m having some technical difficulties getting Add Art to work I really enjoy the overall concept and look forward to seeing where this project goes.

libbyrosof November 8, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Hysterical and wonderful. We need to create a special award category for this one (we’re already thinking about our annual New Years’ Liberta awards) for each of you–Paddy and Steve Lambert. To replace those mind-deadening spaces with mind-expanding ones is fabulous. And to subvert the hounds of commerce is great fun!!!
It’s with some disappointment that I note artcal’s ad remains at the top of your page! C’mon!!! subvert yourself!!! 🙂

libbyrosof November 8, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Hysterical and wonderful. We need to create a special award category for this one (we’re already thinking about our annual New Years’ Liberta awards) for each of you–Paddy and Steve Lambert. To replace those mind-deadening spaces with mind-expanding ones is fabulous. And to subvert the hounds of commerce is great fun!!!
It’s with some disappointment that I note artcal’s ad remains at the top of your page! C’mon!!! subvert yourself!!! 🙂

Art Fag City November 8, 2008 at 11:58 pm

Actually, I have no control over that. The add-on works on most ads but not all.

Art Fag City November 8, 2008 at 6:58 pm

Actually, I have no control over that. The add-on works on most ads but not all.

Timothy Buckwalter November 9, 2008 at 3:50 am

On Kennon’s blurb I think you mean RFK was killed in 1968, not JFK.

Timothy Buckwalter November 8, 2008 at 10:50 pm

On Kennon’s blurb I think you mean RFK was killed in 1968, not JFK.

Art Fag City November 9, 2008 at 3:53 am

Ack! Thanks!

Art Fag City November 8, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Ack! Thanks!

Sean November 9, 2008 at 8:05 pm

love the idea

Just installed it, and the execution doesn’t seems so hot. All the ads disappear, but many of them aren’t replaced with art. My screen seems lonely.

Sean November 9, 2008 at 3:05 pm

love the idea

Just installed it, and the execution doesn’t seems so hot. All the ads disappear, but many of them aren’t replaced with art. My screen seems lonely.

Art Fag City November 9, 2008 at 8:12 pm

@Sean: Steve is constantly working to improve the add-on, but to be honest, I haven’t experienced the same issue: I find most of the ads on the sites I visit are replaced. You can make comment about that issue though on the add-art forum and Steve will address it directly:

http://forum.add-art.org/

Art Fag City November 9, 2008 at 3:12 pm

@Sean: Steve is constantly working to improve the add-on, but to be honest, I haven’t experienced the same issue: I find most of the ads on the sites I visit are replaced. You can make comment about that issue though on the add-art forum and Steve will address it directly:

http://forum.add-art.org/

Sean November 9, 2008 at 9:57 pm

thanks 🙂

maybe it’s a glitch with my computer or something

Sean November 9, 2008 at 4:57 pm

thanks 🙂

maybe it’s a glitch with my computer or something

krucoff November 10, 2008 at 3:39 pm

The ads became black boxes after I installed it but Steve has the fix for that here.

http://forum.add-art.org/topic.php?id=27

Works great now. Love the concept and exhibition. Now if someone would just develop this for television…

krucoff November 10, 2008 at 10:39 am

The ads became black boxes after I installed it but Steve has the fix for that here.

http://forum.add-art.org/topic.php?id=27

Works great now. Love the concept and exhibition. Now if someone would just develop this for television…

L.M. November 10, 2008 at 4:44 pm

I had problems with it slowing my browser too. (sometimes crashing it) I’ll look into the fix.

L.M. November 10, 2008 at 11:44 am

I had problems with it slowing my browser too. (sometimes crashing it) I’ll look into the fix.

rob November 12, 2008 at 8:12 pm

Instead of advertising the companies that sponsor these sites, allowing them to give you the content you desire or request, you are advertising the artists, who could care less why you are on this site in the first place. Sigh.

rob November 12, 2008 at 3:12 pm

Instead of advertising the companies that sponsor these sites, allowing them to give you the content you desire or request, you are advertising the artists, who could care less why you are on this site in the first place. Sigh.

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