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Picture of the Day
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Saturday
January 18, 2003

 
 

Greg Lundgren has another really great idea, call it "virtual bombing."1
His coming website, vital5productions.com, will sponsor an arbitrary
art grant. Applicants are invited to submit photos which they have re-
touched to include subversive or otherwise countercultural  messages.
One winner will be selected via the following process: all submissions
will be printed out and laid wall-to-wall on the floor of a room. A par-
akeet will be released, and whichever image it poops on first will earn
the contributor $500. I love this idea because it is a risk-free way for
people to send their message by co-opting icons and public space in
a way which will never be erased. Imagine the White House tagged
with graffiti, billboards with their sales pitches thrown back in the ad-
vertisers' faces. Take a look at www.billboardliberation.com and you
will get the idea. The only difference is the ones there took place in 3-D
space/time, but in our day of mediated experience, the image is the reality.

1Dear Meriam-Webster,  there's a 3rd usage of the verb "bomb" which is current with today's DIY subcultures. Bombing means leaving one's mark in public, whether in the form of graffiti, posters, signs, or other signifiers which say, I Was Here and/or This Is What I Think.