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Delete! Delettering the Public Space
Last year we talked about Matt Siber's The Untitled Project, photographs of urban settings that are digitally stripped of all traces of textual information. This summer, Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf applied this concept to the urban settings themselves. In a remarkable display of cooperation for the sake of art, every store on a popular shopping street in Vienna allowed their signage to be masked in yellow fluorescent foil.
The artists also "deleted" all public signs and signals, except those necessary for road safety. The installation ran from June 6---30. The man in the photo is pondering either the "smooth orderless space" or "the geometric bodies now more evident due to the monochrome uniformity of the signs". Or he's trying to figure out where the hell he is. That's okay. A little befuddlement is a small price to pay for such a powerful piece of art. Christoph and Rainer, bring it Stateside! (Unfortunately, I don't think we'd see this on any U.S. street. A public space project like The Gates is one thing, but American businesses allowing their logos to be concealed? Sadly, never.)
Simulations of projects in New York City and Ginza:
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Comments
It’s interesting how the yellow in NYC blends in with the cabs. ebukva | Jun 26, 2005 02:42 PM
More on this here and here (in German). Chris | Jun 26, 2005 05:30 PM
Some more comment at I disagree with the comment posted there however, this may not be pretty but it's marring of the landscape represents the ubiquity of the commercial markings that it's covering. quis | Jun 27, 2005 05:13 AM
I would think that yellow cabs are "textual information" and are as iconic as any billboard. Ben Whitehouse | Jun 27, 2005 12:16 PM
Yes, Ben, you're right. The Yellow cabs should certainly be painted blue. jlt | Jun 27, 2005 02:47 PM
I had no idea the new FontShop FontBook was due out! What a clever co-branding exercise! Si | Jun 28, 2005 11:55 AM
been there, done that... http://flickr.com/photos/bytebeat/sets/451746/ bytebeat | Jun 30, 2005 01:29 AM
Hmm, that link isn't working at the moment. But here is the "delete" tag at Flickr. Stephen Coles | Jun 30, 2005 02:03 AM
No message, no type, no information.
Here is bytebeat's photo set of the project. I guess he was on the execution team! Stephen Coles | Jun 30, 2005 01:46 PM
Through www.letterlabor.de (by the way, do check out Kai Bernau's 'Neutral' project) I came across another, more humble, example of delettering: www.berndgrether.de A similar micro-delettering project is the poster Laurenz Brunner made to display his 'Akkurat' typeface.
So, are all the graphic designers who made all those letters, are they not artists too? Or are they just bad artists? Or are they artists who get paid, thus sellouts? The vast blank yellow squares make me want to spray graffiti.
You know, if I had about and added yellow squared to pictures, it would be considered pretty much useless. But if a graphic artist does it... Harry | Aug 11, 2005 02:31 AM |
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