Shop 'till You Drop
For various boring reasons I spent much of today lying in bed thinking "what have you done with your life?" I found this article online, which at once makes me feel better and not-all-that-better. The word of the day, boys and girls, is "shopdropping." If you've got a mo, read the article. If not, I'll tell ya: shopdropping is the process whereby (usually political) material is surreptitiously distributed into your local retail outlet. See also: guerrilla art.
I loves me some guerrilla art. See also: Space Invader. See also: ATHF Movie Promotion Fracas.
I don't have any specific ideas, not yet, and I don't have much in the way of, say, infrastructure to go on some printing rampage, but I gotta do something, right? Ack. Anyway, the NY Times article goes on to list a number of less-savory instances of this practice, like leaving your newly-bought puppy behind at Petco. Also, self-published authors are slipping their magnum opi (Latinates, is that how that breaks down? Opi? Opii?) in book stores (which I think would work for second-hand but not places like Borders) and Indie Musicians are leaving CDs behind at The Local Starbucks. Religious Nutcases have also taken to proselytizing by slipping pamphlets into gay- and lesbian-themed magazines at local bookstores.
Merry pranksters, all. See also: "Culture Jamming."
"Similar to the way street art stakes a claim to public space for self expression, my shopdropping project subverts commercial space for artistic use in an attempt to disrupt the mundane commercial process with a purely artistic moment."
--Ryan Watkins-Hughes, on http://www.shopdropping.net, 12/26/07
Hughes goes on to say what he's after, what various proponents of this movement are after, is the reclamation of the visual space we encounter on a daily basis.
I did do something kind of like this once, about ten years ago, in High School. It did not go over well. At the time I was principally concerned with impressing a girl, so I can't claim my motives have ever been all that pure when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Ranting. Unfocused. I apologize.
I loves me some guerrilla art. See also: Space Invader. See also: ATHF Movie Promotion Fracas.
I don't have any specific ideas, not yet, and I don't have much in the way of, say, infrastructure to go on some printing rampage, but I gotta do something, right? Ack. Anyway, the NY Times article goes on to list a number of less-savory instances of this practice, like leaving your newly-bought puppy behind at Petco. Also, self-published authors are slipping their magnum opi (Latinates, is that how that breaks down? Opi? Opii?) in book stores (which I think would work for second-hand but not places like Borders) and Indie Musicians are leaving CDs behind at The Local Starbucks. Religious Nutcases have also taken to proselytizing by slipping pamphlets into gay- and lesbian-themed magazines at local bookstores.
Merry pranksters, all. See also: "Culture Jamming."
"Similar to the way street art stakes a claim to public space for self expression, my shopdropping project subverts commercial space for artistic use in an attempt to disrupt the mundane commercial process with a purely artistic moment."
--Ryan Watkins-Hughes, on http://www.shopdropping.net, 12/26/07
Hughes goes on to say what he's after, what various proponents of this movement are after, is the reclamation of the visual space we encounter on a daily basis.
I did do something kind of like this once, about ten years ago, in High School. It did not go over well. At the time I was principally concerned with impressing a girl, so I can't claim my motives have ever been all that pure when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Ranting. Unfocused. I apologize.