Mesa Arts Center Feature

Recently Mesa Arts Center in Arizona did a feature on me and my more mainstream work so I figured I'd post it here for my readers. The video is located at the Mesa Arts Center Blog.

Ikea and Guerilla Marketing

Ikea is one of the most well known names in home furnishing. The company gained notoriety and massive success (now the world's largest furniture retailer) by pioneering flat-pack design furniture marketed at affordable prices. 

Ikea has been creating a bit of buzz over the past couple of years because of its use of alternative marketing practices including the use of guerilla art marketing.Ads like these balconies in Frankfurt, Germany which are done up to look like storage boxes successfully play into the shortage of storage space in Europe. The ad was praised as clever by some but criticized as an eye sore by others. In this case the balconies were done with the permission of the building owner but not with the permission of the residents of the building or the city of Frankfurt.

In July of last year, Ikea caught national attention in Canada for these guerilla art inspired ads placed throughout Vancouver and other major Canadian cities. Canadians had mixed reactions to the ads. One local business owner went so far as to call the ads "vandalism" (click here for the article). Its interesting that the business owner being quoted was a young alternative-minded entrepreneur who was working to start a skateboard shop where one of the ads was stenciled. Somehow I think this guy would otherwise have been on the side of guerilla art and guerilla marketing campaigns which are often created by people outside of the proverbial alternative box but having it created by a major corporate giant on your property without your consent right outside of your small business just seems like an extra hard slap in the face by corporate business.
Guerilla art is typically considered an alternative art form. It is very often illegal and done under cover of darkness for the purpose of disturbing social complacency. Guerilla marketing has an undeniable connection to guerilla art and it can often be a very effective method to bring attention to your business or product but is a line crossed when major corporate mega-giants implement marketing campaigns inspired by all things anti-corporate? What do you think about this? Be sure to leave a comment and lodge your perspective and opinion.

-guerillaChesko

Japanese Artist's Creations - One Week Time-Lapse

YouTube Guerilla Artists

Its pretty common to surf the net looking for cool blogs and images of unique and noteworthy guerilla art but its another thing to see the process or part of the process from the artists perspective. With that said I'd like to provide a somewhat voyeuristic perspective for my viewers so today I am posting some pretty cool YouTube videos that feature guerilla artists in action. 

Update: Depending on your browser some of the audio for the following videos may not work. Sorry for any inconvenience and I'll do my best to make sure the glitch is worked out next time. If you cant hear you're not missing much as the second video is the only on with commentary. Thanks to @Towens149 on Twitter for pointing out the audio glitch!

This is artist and activist Jordan Seiler. Seiler also runs Public Ad Campaign. 

This video was done by a group of student artists. It features video of their Scotch-tape based guerilla art, them observing the public's reaction to their work, and the later half of the video displays images of the creations.

This video is a video slide show featuring some of the genius creations of Mark Jenkins. To visit Mark Jenkins' website click here. Mark's work will be featured here on guerillaChesko very soon!

Finally this video is shows a very cool piece of traffic cone guerilla art and the video also shows just how oblivious some people are toward their surroundings.

Invisible Graffiti Project - "Spellbinder"

Tech-savvy street art lovers at the University of Edinburgh Division of Informatics have developed and launched a mobile phone powered "invisible art" project dubbed Spellbinder. The application works by enabling users to take pictures of buildings on the university's campus and send the images via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service otherwise known as picture-message) to a server that uses image-matching algorithms to identify specific buildings in its database. The server then returns the image to the user who can now view the building with the hidden graffiti (dubbed "geekriti") on their cell phone. The project has transformed the otherwise mundane trek to class for some students into an exciting hunt for graffiti. 

Thanks to Matt Fischer at Provoke Creative (@provokecreative on Twitter) for sharing this story.

For more information on Spellbinder and related developments out of the University of Edinburgh Division of Informatics click here.

1000 Strangers - Cardboard Drawings

This great guerilla art concept by Canadian artist Hilary Leung involves her sketches of people she sees while riding trains and metros. The sketches are done on cardboard with black and white marker. From what I understand the artist does not actually implant finished pieces in real space as the image below shows (I think maybe that was photoshoped to show context for the drawing). Either way, the concept to do just that is a phenomenal one. I think a similar project could be very successful here in Phoenix with our new Light Rail system. Hmmm, stay tuned ;)

Hilary Leung's cardboard sketches can be seen here where they are currently on auction.

Update: I was so inspired by this image that I have decided to go about a similar guerilla art project using life size paintings and the Phoenix Light Rail system. Stay tuned.

Wii Graffiti Mod + Microsoft Xbox Paint Party

Hey folks! We're switching things up a little bit for this post and discussing some new developments in the technology world that could get people more in touch with their inner artist and maybe even encourage some budding street artists. FYI, I'd love to hear what you have to say about this stuff via the comments feature at the bottom off this post!

Microsoft Xbox Natal and Paint Party

If you are a gamer or if you know anyone who is I'm sure you've heard about some of the advancements Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, and other gaming consoles are undergoing. Now I'm not a gamer myself but some of these developments might turn me into one. Microsoft has developed a way to turn a player's entire body into a realtime controller which enables the player to step into the game and physically participate at a previously unattainable level. The development, which is to be released with the newest version of the Xbox sometime in the near future, uses multiple cameras for depth perception and audio microphones to capture voice instruction. 

One of the cooler early development demos for this new Microsoft technology is called Paint Party. Check out the video below to view a preview of what it is capable of.  There could be great potential for this.

Nintendo Wii Graffiti Mod "WiiSpray"

This next street artist-oriented tech development really has me excited. German college students Martin Lihs and Frank Matus have developed a prototype for a spraycan Nintendo Wii controller. 

Check out the below video and just imagine the possibilities this could open up!

Go to StreetLevel for the original story.