Author: Kars Alfrink

I’ve been researching street art and related topics lately, and have come across a range of interesting things people have placed in public spaces. I thought it would be fun (and perhaps enlightening) to collect them here. Each entry follows a similar format, listing what was left, by whom and with what intent, what it was made of, and what the reactions were.

Clearly, ‘playing’ in public spaces is not without risk. Reactions can vary widely and are dependent on such a huge range of things that you can essentially not predict what will happen. If you want to leave things with the aim of changing the public’s attitude, you’d best embrace this unpredictability, make use of it, and not be naive about it.

Banksy (2008)

World famous street artist Banksy has created many interventions in public space. A recent one in London being a mural showing a girl raising a flag bearing the logo of Tesco’s while two children look on, hands on their harts. The piece is filmed for an hour and the result shows a huge amount of people stopping and looking at it. (Which is interesting in the context of to the next example.)

Photo credit: Ben Bell on Flickr.

Luc Tuymans (2008)

As an experiment, critically acclaimed contemporary painter Luc Tuymans paints a mural on the walls of a busy pedestrian street in Antwerp. Hardly anyone (less than 10%) pays the work any attention, as this video shows. What does this say about people, what does it say about contemporary art?

Photo credit: Pkeyn on Flickr.

ATHF Mooninite (2007)

LED displays showing a Mooninite, a character from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force animated show are attached to metal surfaces throughout 10 major cities in the USA. They are part of a guerilla marketing campaign to promote an upcoming ATHF film. After being up for a few weeks, Boston police are alerted to their presence and mistaken for possible bombs, launching a full-on scare. The artists responsible for putting them up (Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28) are arrested but later released.

Photo credit: Emilgh on Flickr.

Super Mario Bros. Blocks (2006)

Street artist Poster Child publishes instructions for the creation of blocks faced with question marks taken from the game Super Mario Bros. online. Inside the blocks are the traditional power-ups from the game. His intention is to comment on the onslaught of advertising in public space. Many create the blocks and put them up in various public places, some as a statement, other for fun. One group of young women is arrested for doing the same, but are ultimately not charged.

Photo credit: Block by Psticks taken from Poster Child’s site.

British UFOs (1967)

The RAE Rag Committee plants six small-sized saucers at equal distances on a straight line in the south of England. The saucers are made from fiberglass resin, contain electronics to make them bleep when tilted at certain angles and are filled with a mixture of flour and water boiled at high temperature to represent alien life. The resulting reaction is comparable to the War of the Worlds scare of 1938. The intention of the hoaxers: to raise funds for charity. They were not persecuted, although some authorities were less than amused.

Description based on an article by John Keeling in Fortean Times #228 from which the image is taken as well.

Can you think of any other weird things placed in public spaces? Do let me know.