There is a form of guerrila street art active in Los Angeles. Perhaps in your town, too. Some feature cartoon birds hanging from power lines at major intersections, some are intricate line art of politicians with ironic captions. Another is a skeleton talking on a cell phone.
The more familiar and commercial form of street art is our familiar friend the billboard. It's a highly effective and cost efficient form of advertising and the MBA in me loves them. (Disclaimer: Symantec often advertises with billboards.) The urban resident in me thinks they are an annoying part of city living. And the new electronic billboards with constantly changing images are a distraction when I'm driving and an intrusion into nearby homes with the flickering and overly bright images illuminating upper floors without pity.
Computer programming determines the array of ads to be displayed. And where there are computers, there are often hackers lurking to disrupt or worse. Our local Clear Channel electronic billboards recently began displaying the graffiti image of a cellphone-yakking skeleton and the rumors began to fly among the hacking community. How did the artists hack into the system to display their guerrilla art? Kudos and high fives were flying in the blogging community and then...it turns out, it was what it should have been. It was legitimate advertising! As Dr. Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Original posting date: Thursday, March 27, 2008 | 8:30 AM |