Transparent Street Signs by Cayetano Ferrer.

1. Fabian
   June 10th, 2006 at 4:43 pm

   And he does not get in trouble for painting over city signs?

2. Ted
   June 10th, 2006 at 5:42 pm

   Looks more like they’re photoshopped.
   You could do it easily with layers.

3. abbot
   June 10th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

   “And he does not get in trouble for painting over city signs?’

   It’s street art, so it’s technically illegal. It is probably a big sticker rather than painting directly on the sign. He’s not the first person to do it. The artists in the Urban Bloods collective out of France do the same thing but with huge billboards. Here is their website. http://urblooz.free.fr/

4. abbot
   June 10th, 2006 at 8:20 pm

   by the way. the photo you guys chose is one that illustrates how the sign doesn’t match up with the background if viewed from the wrong angle. this is the correct one. http://www.cayetanoferrer.com/city_of_chicago/images/pages/image04.htm

5. Alex
   June 11th, 2006 at 12:39 pm

   Thanks abbot - I’ve fixed the photo. Cayetanno Ferrer’s “transparent” street art is probably one of the most interesting street arts I’ve seen in a while.

   For those who like the Urban Bloods collective, check out the “subversive” Art Not Oil, as featured in Neatorama before.

6. Rin
   June 11th, 2006 at 6:17 pm

   Photoshop poor job.

   Idear is nice

7. pat
   June 11th, 2006 at 9:01 pm

   As Abbot said, if you read a lil bit on the site, it’s not painted onto the sign, it’s a sticker posted over the sign and you can see the sticker peeling off in

8. BG
   June 12th, 2006 at 6:17 pm

   This f(art) sucks.

   Defacing civic information that informs the public of civil laws is lame.

   Critics might agree when the day comes that their car is towed or ticketed, or when they miss a ccritical turn to a hospital, or fail to stop and run into traffic, all to further some lame-brains resume.

   These signs are posted for broader reasons other than an individuals vanity.

   sheez what a putz.

9. JM
   June 12th, 2006 at 7:39 pm

   it’s not photoshopped, i know this guy and he’s been doing this for years.

10. BG
    June 13th, 2006 at 7:48 am

    Yeah -years, and so played out.

    Single viewpoint/vantage, f(art)works -staged for the photograph and/or to position the ‘audience’ in a set place, at a set time.

    Lots of flexibility of interpretation there eh? If were to spon a political movement would it be a Dictatorship?

11. Ted
    June 13th, 2006 at 11:29 am

    Still looks photoshopped to me.
    It would be more socially responsible if it were a fake picture.
    It would be easy to photoshop a “peeling” edge, as well. Not that I don’t believe that someone could take a picture of the tree, print it on a label, and stick it on a sign. Just that it would be a lot easier to fake the picture, and then pretend that you were defacing public property.
    All in all, an unusual idea, but kind of limited in scope. He should have made a transparent plexiglass sign with the same info as the original sign, and then replaced it. That way, it would work from a lot wider angle.

12. Max
    June 13th, 2006 at 1:07 pm

    Good point Ted, this kind of stuff reminds me of dopes that go around giving people “happy slaps”, all in their -good fun.

    The spon, that’s funny.

    “We just wanted to spray something because we knew it could be cleaned up.”

    [Just like Mommy did when he did a doodie?]

    “…it was one of the minor things we could do.”

    [Making people clean up after them; a portrait of a USER, future conspicuous consumer, and general pain in the arse. ]

    http://www.todaystmj4.com/_content/news/topstories/story_3019.asp

13. Max
    June 13th, 2006 at 1:24 pm

    Let me restate the edited note…

    This is a pertinent addition to this work, and discussion.
    http://www.todaystmj4.com/_content/news/topstories/story_3019.asp

    The gentelman in the news link is quoted as saying.
    “We just wanted to spray something because we knew it could be cleaned up… So we thought it was one of the minor things we could do.”

    Have others clean up after them?

    Charming.

14. cayetano
    June 29th, 2006 at 12:49 pm

    “Critics might agree when the day comes that their car is towed or ticketed, or when they miss a ccritical turn to a hospital, or fail to stop and run into traffic, all to further some lame-brains resume.”

    these are all done on no parking signs. no stop signs or other critical traffic signs were defaced, and trust me, no one’s car is going to get towed. stop blowing the slight inconvenience of this act out of proportion, its boring me to death. and if you could let me know how doing this could go on a resume, please enlighten us.

    “Single viewpoint/vantage, f(art)works -staged for the photograph and/or to position the ‘audience’ in a set place, at a set time.”

    so what? arent we separated enough from our physical environments by the simulacra of mass media? Like anything else, these images couldnt resist been absorbed by it, but they only did months after the stickers themselves were weathered and stripped from the signs. I like that the real audience was extremely limited… these documentations are just leftovers.

    “Still looks photoshopped to me.
    It would be more socially responsible if it were a fake picture.
    It would be easy to photoshop a “peeling” edge, as well… All in all, an unusual idea, but kind of limited in scope. He should have made a transparent plexiglass sign with the same info as the original sign, and then replaced it. That way, it would work from a lot wider angle.”

    Give me a break… are you really so at home with simulations that doing this in photoshop would have the same effect? And where is the social responsibility with your suggestion of changing the sign with plexiglass… it seems similarly destructive, without the magic.

    An important part of this piece is about a kind of silent interconnection in our physical space. That someone would have to stand exactly where the photographer stood to match the image up is amazing to me. If only one person took the time to do that I think the piece is a success… the internet is only good for people to anonymously talk shit and for people like me to get defensive about it.

    I’m not even going to respond to whoever compared this to satanic graffiti. That was a pretty funny link though…

15. MIHAIL GEORGEVICI
    December 17th, 2008 at 4:00 am

    Campaign for “A TRANSPARENT MASS–MEDIA”

    In the rush for sensational and bigger profits, we got use to distortion the reality.

    We present you some negative facts which do not onor us and we fight against it !

    1. The presentation, with regularity in news reports of the negatives aspects, subjectively commented, taking sides or sententious.
    2. The vitiation of Romanian image in the World through resentation of an unauthorized opinions which labels a whole nation after an individual behavior of some Romanians, or even worst, of some Rromi (Gipsy) which have problems with the law.
    3. Repeating the same negatives news in a bigger or smaller period of time.
    4. The periodic generalization of irregularities, like being a rule to follow or a national character feature.
    5. Taking over of unchecked information from persons which has interest and are subordinated of the corrupt triangle – political man – business man – mass media representative, which detour the attention from the true causes of the events.
    6. Often, we see how unprofessional broadcasts have as protagonists some characters, citizens which has problems with the law, having a trivial vocabulary, where are revealed information related with the private life or of trials. We warn you that the justice cannot be done with the television and neither influencing the course of an investigation through all sort of maneuvers or diversions which claims that is a journalistic investigation. We ask ourselves on good reason, if the mass-media didn’t develop his client capitalism.
    7. To abstain ourselves in the attempt to sub-appreciate the state institutes, to encourage the anarchy and the special interest groups which has as purpose the destruction of the force and the authority of the Romanian national state as a right and democratic state.
    8. As we know, the state fundamental law, The Romanian Constitution, claims clearly at article 30, paragraph 6: “the speech freedom cannot prejudice the dignity, the honor, the private life of the person and neither the right of the self imagine”; paragraph 7: “are prohibited by law the defamation of the country and the nation, the inducement of the aggression act, at national, racial, class or religion hate, the incitement to discrimination, to territorial
    separatism to public violence, also the obscene manifestations, which contravene of the good behavior”. Also in article 31, paragraph 3, claims that “the right to the information cannot prejudice the protection measurements of young or the national security”.
    9. In this context, we propose to constitute an organism with juridical authority “National Council Against Manipulation”, as the existing one, named “National Council for Disproof of Discrimination”, which will have the purpose to discourage the media, imagine and ideological war, to forbidden the intoxication of the public opinion through disinformation, but also the over-information.
    10. We address ourselves to the Romanian President, Mr. Traian Basescu,to apply the Constitutional prerogatives, mentioning the article 30, paragraph 5, which states that: “the law can impose to the mass media the obligation of making public the source of financing”.

    The Parliament will have a big responsibility to modify and complete the informational protection law, by consulting “the civil and academic society”.

    The opinion of interested people in this campaign will be published in Romania and abroad.

    President of MASS COMMUNICATION POWER
    Mihail Geogevici

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT