PROJECT INFO
The placard project „Follow order! Commands for a better life.“ of atelier KUNSTKOMMT! is an art campaign in public space with placards. Commands as paradox thinking instructions are mirroring promises of happiness of our media- and consumption surrounding as artwork on disorientation and search for meaning.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
What is the project about?
Different placard motives with commands as subversive ironic statements on promises of happiness are provided on this website for free download and print-out. In the photo gallery you find a collection of the placarding locations: In public and private space, on locations of free choice.
The aim is to make possible a grassroot-movement, which mingles in public space. Participants placard on locations of free choice, document the motives as photos and upload these photos of the placardings in the photo gallery. On and off the artists are present on different locations and hand out the placards. New command-placards will be created and the project will be shown with the photo transmittals in exhibitions.
How and where can I placard?
In principle everywhere, as and where you like, indoors and outdoors, public and private –
we are curious about your ideas!
As a matter of course you cannot placard wild. Hopefully you will find some legal nice and meaningful free public spaces for placarding, for instance on placarding boards in schools, offices, civic halls and other meeting- and event places etc. If you ask for permission, most people allow a placarding in their environment such as shop windows, office doors or mall-walls.
Obviously you can also place placards indoor: In the office or in your private rooms. If you use the placards or the mini-placard stands, there are no limitations for your fantastic individual photo placard creations ...
How does the photo-upload function?
You can upload photos as *.JPG and *.TIF files very quick and easy. The digital photo must have 2 MB size maximum and width/height 2048 pixels maximum. In the form field “photo upload” in the PHOTO GALLERY you can choose one file and upload it. You do not need to register at all, nor to fill in any other information in the form if you do not want to. So you can send your pictures anonymous. The usage of the upload procedure is not limited. So you can send as much miscellaneous photos you want for the gallery. We are certainly pleased when we get to know who has taken the photo and where the image is located but it’s up to you.
What happens with the uploaded photos?
The uploaded photos are documents which fix a fugacious and temporary statement in space. For the documentation we provide our placards for free. The artist team “atelier KUNSTKOMMT!” collects the uploaded pictures with placarding locations to document this process and to exhibit them. The release of the uploaded photo documents must be free of charge and is essential part of the project: So you have the possibility to participate in a form of public presentation.
BACKGROUND
How do we have to be, how do we have to think?
The placard project scrutinises promises of happiness and search for meaning as social intervention in public space with paradox thinking attitudes. A placard edition visualises short commands which mirror attitudes, mental states and values of our global media and consumption surrounding.
There is a rich market of self-help books, life consultants and guides and in particular the advertising media world has numerous answers on how we have to be for a better life. But: Do we really want to be commanded? For examination the art project offers an intervention in the private and the public living environment.
This art campaign calls out on free placarding as paradox intervention in (public) space. The placards are free for download and print: Simply print out commands, placard anywhere you want and make a photo!
The photos of placarded commands from anyone are collected. A photo documentation with free appropriation of the promises for happiness grows.
Negotiation processes
The art campaign is an intervention in public space and a appropriation of public space. With the commands you can create independent statements about the location of placarding.
The location specific negotiation processes depend on where which text is located with whom and with the environmental situation and the messages of the media- and consumption world.
Do we really want to be commanded? Command placards for an examination.
We live in a society with individual self-determination and flexibility. It sounds good but the resultant mass of possibilities and freedom lead often to disorientation. Instead of taking life as it comes, we go on a search for meaning. How do I feel with life at the moment? Being is put to test. If it is the pursuit of happiness or other ideals, continuously we prove, search and orient ourself, especially towards messages served by media, advertising, politics and opinion research.
Qualities and definitions of surrounding fields, work, values and rules let the inner reality get mixed up and out of kilter. The demands on single phases on our life often are not in line with the own agenda. The conduct of life is perceived as doubtful and questionable. Self-help books, management advisors, personal trainers, life coaches — only too willingly we are searching for optimistic advertising messages and suggestions for self-help.
Not only advertisement works with instructions for happiness, also in local governments, companies and politics missions, motivation orders, new vision openings and phrases of values are present. Do we really want to be commanded how to be and what to think? The project offers command placards for an examination.
Awareness exercise
The placard series visualizes in a multicolor and minimal graphic stile thinking instructions as short commands, which refer to attitudes, emotions and positive meaning. They give no orders for operation but desirable self requests in an abstract form. Conditions of desire such as happiness, success, freedom, prosperity, well-being, feeling of security, love, uniqueness are being abstracted as sentences with values and attitudes.
The work with the word COMMAND is a purposive sample. The sentences of the placards are culminations of assumed values which are subliminal patterns in everyday life. As explicit orders they are visualised echoes in space to gain observers to reassess attitudes. We have chosen an imperative as infinite verb form (lat. infinitum), the person is not mentioned specifically.
The self-help and consultancy market and our media driven world has scores of answers how to be. There are a lot of instructions how we have to be and masses of assumed aphorisms. Our sentences follow a 7 words rule and operate obviously with classic cliches. We purport a simple action or condition and send the viewer in a form of exercise. In relation with the chosen locations paradox propositions come to the fore.
PROJECT SUPPORT
Project grant for art - Projektstipendium KunstKommunikation '08
In the course of the project grant for art / communication (Projektstipendiums KunstKommunikation’08) of the DA, Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst, Germany the concept was developed and put into practice with a placarding in public space of five cities in the county of Steinfurt, Germany. A large-scale placarding with participation, a digital photo collection and an exhibition as documentation of the whole process was developed. With own funds the website was designed and put into practice bilingual. Now the internet project can be used international as photo-action platform.
Placarding campaign in the county of Steinfurt, Germany
The placards were mingled in advertising panels in public space and in the urban space special installations were shown in co-operation with public authorities.
At the one hand we placarded in person and with voluntary helpers (pupil groups, commitants of cityscape support, amateur artists) in the city center and went finally in the shops, where we could use the windows and displays. One placard motive was supra regional present as bus advertisement. In addition the placards were available at cultural project-support-points.
At the other hand we toured with a small transporter wagon and handed out masses of placards to take away among passers-by. In this way we initiated a free annexation in space: Anyone can placard at any location and upload photos of the placarding. We have got a collection of photos which shows new individual statements and contexts of sense in public and private space.
A dissemination of 5000 command placards in different formats were achieved with campaigns in the city centers of bigger cities in the county of Steinfurt, Germany and in the DA, Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst. In the cities Rheine, Lengerich, Ibbenbüren and Emsdetten our placards were mingled in advertising zones in public space and in the city centres in May / June 2008. With installations they were especially staged. The placards were published as series and as single motives in a wide-spread area as well.
The installations with placard stands were built in the cities as satellite points, so that the placards could have been seen over a longer period of time. In the participating cities there were campaigns in which the placards were given away for free. Many participants hung-up placards and made photos of them which they uploaded in the online gallery.
A public relations offensive saw the action through the area and supra regional resonance. As a whole 140 photos with placarding situations of the participation process were shown from 6th of July 2008 till 31th of January 2009 in DA, Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst as mixed media installation. The exhibition contained a photo-wall installation, which reflects the different commands in different contexts such as environment and people. The placard stands were partly bedaubed and destroyed. The website had page views above average also beyond the event space.
The action has motivated a broad examination with the theme: It reached from discussions during the campaign, over interesting photo-statements culminating in demolition of the installations, graffiti's and elimination of the placards by force. The press adopted the placard-texts and they led to a life of its own independent of the project...
The artist team toured with a small transporter wagon (dolly) and distributed among passers-by masses of placards to take away. All were asked to help placarding at any location they want and to upload photos of it. The photo collection of the process in June 2008 shows an exhibition at DA, Kunsthaus. And the art project goes on!