9/11 Forward. Together. - street art

A group of Miami ad school students made this street art vandalizing tour (I'm not judging, I did it too when I was a student in the 90s), and a short spec film about their stunt that honors the the victims of 9/11 at the same time as it celebrates the memorial site by looking to the future.

“We wanted to create something different to show people that sharing the memory of 9/11 makes us stronger. We will never stop moving forward and we will never be alone. That’s what the connection between the two towers and the walking man symbolizes.”

Their release continues: "The signs have been spotted all over Manhattan and Brooklyn in busy areas such as the Financial District, Union Square and Bedford Ave in Williamsburg. If you want to catch a glimpse of the artwork you better hurry up because we don’t know for how long they will get to stay up. "

Lets be honest kids, you made like five of these, and that's good enough because it's an OK film, and really, traffic signs are there for traffic, so it's best not to vandalize all of them anyway. Hopefully, you'll remove it as well, but that would be taking more responsibility than any rich advertiser does when they scatter wild posters on non-ad media sites, so nobody is going to hold you to that.

Credits:
Vittoria Tonelli
Helena Olsson
Ece Ciftci
Khoi Phan
Alejandra Garcia
Ana Lucia Lopez Espinoza

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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ana lu's picture

Why are you posting stuff that you don´t like ??

Or is this just because you wanna make people fell bad about something that they made with a good feeling?

May be you should ask the hundreds of people who is sharing this on social media.

I really feel bad for you.

Good luck

kidsleepy's picture

First off, the review isn't hateful. At all. It's appreciative and honest. It is a nice art piece, but guerrilla-style art has been around for decades so even as "art" it's a familiar execution. Sorry but that's truth.

There is a lot of potential to it, and it could have been a decent ad if your group had put a bit more thought into how to turn it into an ad.

For instance, everyone knows the way to make this kind of art is at night when no one is looking. It would have been far more compelling to show how people reacted to it instead of you sneaking around the city at night. That was your whole purpose, right? Where are the reactions?
The point is to show the outcome, not the "making-of."

Right now it feels like a student ad: it's an "art piece," there's no deep insight or motivation beyond it, and there's no client attached to it either. Plus your media is clearly something made to be provocative, but not real.

Without a client attached it feels a bit lazy, like you couldn't be arsed to make it seem real. That's just an honest opinion.

If you want us to pat you on the back, we can do that, but just know that a pat on the back won't get you hired, and a million social media shares might not either. A book full of amazing ads will. I suspect you know this and just had a knee jerk reaction. And that's cool. We've all been there.

Just shake it off, and send us some more work. Maybe some actual ads would be nice.

Dabitch's picture

Heh. It's as if Kidsleepy is playing good cop. Cute.

Question replied to in order of appearance:

1 - I didn't say I didn't like it, I said the film was OK. I take that back. It's as shit as the alpha1 stunt. We only ever see one of these cut-out things, held up on walk-signs by different students at night. We never see it the next day. We never see it in several places at once. We never seen anyone's reaction to it. In other words, this could have all be done for film only, just like the alpha1 and that's a bit shit.

2 - No, you're reading "I want to make people feel bad" into it, which says a lot more about your reaction to it. I am only talking about the ad art project. Disliking a piece of work should not hurt your feelings. Advertising isn't about the people making it having a good feeling, it's about communicating a message. What message is this communicating? Oh, right, moving forward. With no sender and no tie-in, it can't be anything but 'art'. Making 'art' here simply means you couldn't hack making an ad. Your sensitivity to someone not cheering you on with pom-poms also makes me suspect you won't hack being able to work in an agency, where people will have a lot of opinions about everything you make, not all of them nice.

3 - The "hundreds of people are sharing it on social media" is the new "My mom liked it". It doesn't change my opinion one iota, because I am not a school of fish. Nor does it somehow invalidate my opinion. Opinions are subjective.

Let's be honest here, there's no feel-good fluffy hippie-love going on here with your 'art', created by kids from ad-school. What you're really doing is making sure that your names are seen, as it's easy to ride the wave of 9/11 remembrance. Practically everyone will want to post something related to this day, it's a shoe-in for getting mentioned in several blogs, and of course, shared by your mates on Twitter. Coasting on the death of thousands, into the coveted online chatter where you can later prove with graphs and charts how many people saw this.

TLDR; it's a cynical ploy to get attention as ad students. And somehow you think I'm the bad guy in this.

kidsleepy's picture

Lol you said "hack."

Alex Snygg's picture

I'd love people to stop thinking that 'making something look like something else' is a concept. That's all, really.

kidsleepy's picture

Agreed. Whether it's art or an ad it still needs a fucking idea behind it. otherwise it's a wank.

911 what's your emergency?'s picture

Ouch! Come for the review, stay for the stripping down in the comments. Anyone know where these guys are working now?