Your Ad Here? — Final Stage of the Competition
IZOLYATSIA and BigMedia announce a competition for Ukrainian artists to create a project using the medium of outdoor advertising. This initiative continues the series of projects by IZOLYATSIA in the public space of the city: ZAHOPLENNYA (2014), Social Contract (2016-17), Points of Unity (2018). In recent years, chaotic advertising has filled the streets with appeals for desperate consumption and the reason for this is the lack of regulations concerning advertising within the public space.
Selection Pannel
To initiate a meaningful and responsible advertising strategy in the city, IZOLYATSIA and advertising company BigMedia invite artists to critically explore the public space, the use of information technology in contemporary media, the communication strategy of commercial bodies and the local community in the city. The artist with the most comprehensive research will be able to implement an art project on billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising of Kyiv in January-February 2019. From October 17th, artists could submit their proposals for an art project on advertising media. The Special Jury, including experts in urban, architectural, media and advertising studies, have examined all applications and selected five finalists for the next stage.
Final Stage
Consequently, anyone could vote for the artwork which they thought worthy of display around the city. Upon completion of voting, the winner will display an art project on billboards and other outdoor advertising of Kiev in January-February 2019.
Maxim Finogeev, Untitled
Maxim Finogeev proposes to create images created using the Ukrainian craft of vytynann’a (cf. French vêtement, cutting ornaments from paper). The particular artistic way of execution within advertising media conceptualises the suppression of cultural practices for the sake of unconscious consumption. Maxim believes that the reason for the current advertising crisis is their inability to integrate into the local context and an average audience. This tendency sometimes negatively deconstructs the image of the city and forces the citizens to escape the public space.
Vitaly Agapeev, Dead Pixel
Artist and designer Vitaly Agapeev offers the project Dead Pixel. A series of ascetic images with stylistically unified and laconic messages provokes dialectics within maximalist-consumerist culture. Vitaliy used to work in advertising; that's why he considers how reasonable it is to develop a dialogue targeting the consumers of marketed products.
Boris Medvedev and Svetlana Konoplyova
Architects and urbanists Boris Medvedev and Svetlana Konoplyova investigate the influence of different mediums on the quality of information perception. The artists propose a project that figuratively conceptualises the theory of frames - specific structural frameworks delivering a meaningful message. This framework structure is a fundamental means by which the viewer can perceive and interpret the content. Boris and Svetlana believe that figurative images can create an optical illusion within the urban space. Thus, artists deconstruct media carriers drawing the attention of ordinary citizens to the problem of advertising media in the city.
Oksana Kazmina, My City
The artist and director Oksana Kazmina proposes the project My City, in which she addresses the right to ownership of local space. The artist is aware of the effectiveness of advertising media. Therefore, by these means she reflects on the variability of public & private boundaries and the procedure of privatisation of open space by commercial entities. For this means, the artist proposes images printed using the technique of lenticular printing, when the picture is animated as being perceived from different angles. Who owns the city? Do citizens have equal rights to the local environment?
By the decision of the jury members and the team of IZOLYATSIA, project Memories of the future: Hope on Board by Krolikowski Art should be excluded from the election due to the absence of referencing sources.
The Krolikowski Art duo offers the project Memories of the Future: Hope on Board - the advertisement of fantastic technologies that, despite their speculative nature, are very likely to appear in the near future. These images challenge the themes of nostalgia/futurism, the irony of represented image/ naive faith in a depiction, and physical environment/digital space. Artists are convinced that artistic messages using advertising media are triggers for discussion and changes in the city environment.
Image references:
NASA JPL, Visions of the Future: Space Tourism Travel (poster)
DecoEchoes, The Commute of Tomorrow: Hyperloop (digital art)