We each have our role to play on the Urban stage. Whether you are a beggar , a businessman , a carguard , a car thief, a housewife or a homebreaker, a prophet or a Party animal, you cannot live here without being exposed to the Mass Media , cannot survive without being a consumer at some level.
We interact with each other and our environment in a semi-awake fashion . Having satisfied the basic needs for food and shelter boredom sets in. We are constantly inundated by images , data and variety. As a result of Information intoxication de sensitzes us breeding cyniscism or apathy .To counteract the numbness we seek ever more elaborate distractions.We crave more money , more time , more spectacle.
In the quest for the Bigger and the Better we lose the sense of wonder that comes naturally to children , barely noticing the things we are being exposed to. The media assures us that Utopia is attainable through consumption and conformity to specific standards.With this in mind we stumble toward a hazy concept of an 'ideal state' , unaware that we are moving in the opposite direction.
We buy Hope in the shape of Lotto tickets, Happiness in a mealbox from Mcdonalds. We are assured that in this world where everything is impermenent there is "Always Coca Cola'.
We need to question our relationship to our environment , experience it from the perspective of an unbiased observer. We need to pay attention to the details : the flowers and the dogshit , the modern and the obsolete, the poetry and the propaganda. If we remain unaware of the system that we exist within we automatically become slaves to it
This project was not undertaken with the intention of being territorial or subversive. The tags are temporary additions to the Urban landscape , neither defacing nor enhancing the environment.
I have tagged seemingly insignificant structures that are frequently overlooked or taken for granted. These structures are as much a part of the flesh of the city as we are . For as long as we choose to inhabit an Urban infrastructure we cant percieve of ourselves as being seperate from the organism that we depend upon for our survival and recreation. However it is essential that we recognize our resonsibility to challenge and influence its evolution.
When we are confronted propaganda for which there is no obvious motive we immediately question its purpose and in so doing shift out of our standard mode of passive receptor into a more inquisitive mindset.
I hope to spark people's curiosity , enticing them to examine the tags, the structures that they are related to and the broader context of these structures, in order for them to see clearly that which they would ordinarily have overlooked.
