delete!

delete!
Uploaded by Caramdir on 19 Jun '05, 2.15am PST.

Update: Wooster Collective points to more photographs and even a Quicktime VR of the event.

In an indictment of the overwhelming amount of advertising cluttering the landcape in and around Vienna, artists Christoph Steinbrener & Rainer Dempf have created delete! The artists wrapped every advertising sign, company name, and logo, and slogan on Neubaugasse, a Viennese shopping street, in yellow monochrome.

Dempf and Steinbrener argue there’s too much advertising in Vienna, where billboards line many streets and where scaffolding — even on historic buildings such as the famed St. Stephen’s Cathedral — often is covered by oversized ads. Giant rolls of hay serve as stands for advertising signs on fields near highways leading to the city.

“You can’t see the landscape anymore. It hurts the eyes,” Steinbrener said.

Still, the artists did not set out to just conceal the ads — they want to create awareness about them.

“It was important to us to have a bright, highlighting color. Not black or white ... that would have made the signs disappear,” Steinbrener said. “Aside from the visual impact, we wanted to create a discourse about the environment in the public space, and that's happening now.“

Sadly, the installation was removed on June 20, but more photographs can be found on Caramdir's Flickr site and by searching for ‘delete!’ on vienna.metblogs.com.

First seen on Stay Free! Daily, most recently on the Wooster Collective’s blog. Quote from MSNBC’s article “Artists ‘delete’ ads to provoke discussion.”