As artists and citizens reflect deeper on the motivations of commercial advertising we have been increasingly wary of their affects, opting to ignore them or actively alter their meanings in our daily lives. As we face pressure from commercial messages on the internet we may choose to eliminate them with programs like Add-Art. In the public environment such an efficient solution is not available and our efforts to control the dissemination of commercial media face new and daunting challenges. The selected images highlight advertising detournements in the public sphere from a wide range of artists and activists operating globally.

Jordan Seiler is the founder of PublicAdCampaign, an artist/activist project started in NYC in late 2000. Through the reapropriation of outdoor advertising space, the PublicAdCampaign project questions commercial media’s right to the city while demanding a more democratic outdoor media environment which assures public participation and interactions. Operating under the belief that physical interaction with the public environment is an important part of fulfilling your identity as a public citizen, PublicAdCampaign organizes large scale outdoor advertising takeovers as well as other collaborative actions, allowing residents to take personal responsibility for the cities they live in. Jordan Seiler currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.