Adding a Park to an Empty Lot

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Sean Martindale created this lovely project in Toronto. He writes:

For some time now, the spot in has been relatively empty aside from mud, waste and strewn garbage. There’s an application to build condos on the site. It has remained undisturbed since Monday and I watered it yesterday because there hasn’t been any rain lately… Grass is pretty resilient, so it should survive and take root unless/until somebody removes it. Joe Clement assisted me with the install.

via Wooster Collective

Alien Trash Can in Holland

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Created by artists Job Willemsen and Tom v.d. Hurk in Arnhem.

Via Wooster Collective

Fork in the Road

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A fork in the road mysteriously appeared in Pasadena. KTLA has the scoop, complete with lame pun at the end:

 

(thanks Rob)

Super Hero Changing Station

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New York City has had a ton of phone booth art this fall. Lately it seems like you can’t go for a walk without seeing a great piece by an artist like Jordan Seiler. The above was done by Toronto’s Posterchild, who’s been hanging out in NYC quite a bit lately.

I love these unauthorized projects because they’re turning useless eyesores into art. There are certain city blocks in NY that have upwards of 10 public telephones. When is the last time anyone used a payphone? I understand their utility for those who can’t afford or happen to be without a cell phone, but really, do we need multiple phones on every corner? These structures are simply huts to cash in on advertising dollars, and they needlessly pollute the scenery of our streets.

Here’s a great NY Times article from 2007 that explains that pay phone advertising rakes in $62 million a year: As Billboards, Public Phones Always Work.

Also of note, you can see both Seiler and Posterchild, along with Jason Eppink and Specter, speak about their work on Friday, November 20 out in Astoria — details here.

Urban Cursor

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Danish designer Sebastian Campion recently brought his Urban Cursor project to the Ingràvid Festival in Figueres, Spain. Passersby moved the cursor, which was mounted on wheels and outfitted with GPS, around the city center. The cursor’s movements were tracked on Google Maps. According to Campion, the object of the project is “to facilitate social interaction and play in public space.”

via psfk

New Improv Everywhere Musical: I Love Lunch


(View it larger on YouTube)
Song by Anthony King and Scott Brown (Gutenberg! The Musical!)



For their latest mission, seven undercover IE agents staged a spontaneous musical during lunch at the Trump Tower atrium. The mission was filmed for a segment on The Today Show and includes a cameo from Ann Curry. Their report: I Love Lunch! The Musical

Blacktop Battlestar

imagen-314SpY, a Spanish street artist, has been creating urban art since the late 1980’s. He prefers to call his pieces “interventions.” His intervention pictured above is called, “Street Wars.”

via The Art of the Prank via Wired

Living Sculptures

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Austrian artist Willi Dorner recently brought his “Bodies in Urban Spaces” project (which we’ve blogged about before) to London as a part of the annual Dance Umbrella festival. Dorner’s troupe of 20 performers led their audience on a “body sculpture trail” around London, and interacted with urban spaces along the route.

via PSFK and Time Out London

Red Arrow Project

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At last weekend’s Art Under the Bridge Festival in Brooklyn, artists Jennifer Fisher and Christian Cerrito launched their Red Arrow Project. The project consisted of several floating cursor kites (which were tied to weather balloons) pointing at random locations and encouraging people to be mindful of things they normally might not look at.

Fisher and Cerrito’s floating red arrows may provide some competition with New York’s long-running Yellow Arrow Project.

via PSFK

Billboard Silhouette

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Spanish artist Sam3 specializes in creating massive silhouettes with stencils. This shadowy Sam3 creation appeared on a billboard in Murcia, Spain. (Where coincidentally an Mp3 Experiment will happen on Thursday–Improv Everywhere is holding experiments in 4 cities in Spain on the same day.)

via Vandalog