I’ve always thought that advertising was basically legalized gang warfare. In the Los Angeles barrio where I grew up gang graffiti was ubiquitous, more so than ads. Now the reverse is true. In either case, one formal the other informal, they are marking territory. Corporations– not all, mind you– work within the government’s monopoly of violence to control what is and is not seen. I know this is called democracy, but when it comes to media, economics (facilitated by laws written by lobbyists) defines the majority of what is viewed.
Meanwhile, some intrepid activists in NYC have begun a campaign to make this connection. By overlying those obnoxious TV monitor ads that crouch over subway entrances like cybernetic gargoyles, it’s about time these obnoxious flicker machines have the eyelid pulled down over them. Still, and I’m just thinking out loud here, is this kind of culture jamming ever going to succeed? As some critics have noted, spray painting over existing corporate graffiti doesn’t really change the paradigm, it’s just another kind of tagging. In this ontological warfare won’t the advertisers just fight back by making the culture jammer’s language their own? Or worse yet, make more ads?
Technorati Tags: culture jamming, illegaladvertising.com
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