Barcelona, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona 5.-7. Februar 2009
Das Projekt The Influencers widmet sich der Erforschung und Dokumentation von Kampagnen der Kommunikationsguerilla. Dazu gehören die vielfältige Interferenzen mit der Populärkultur, die direkten Intervention in Öffentlichkeit und Massenmedien, Unsichtbares Theater und das (musikalische) Plagiat. Also jegliche Formen der zeitgenössischen Kreativität, die sich im Strom der Information und Zeichen austobt, die die mediale Maschinerie der westlichen Gesellschaften produziert.
The Influencers ist eine geografische und konzeptuelle Untersuchung, deren Ziel es ist, die weltweiten Protagonisten zusammmenzuführen und ihr innovative und disruptive Kraft zu bündeln. The Influencers erstellt eine vielschichtige und vitale Vision von Medienintervention, da der Fokus darauf liegt die Grenzen der einzelnen Disziplinen zu überqueren, um Underground-Techniken aus verschiedenen Zeiten, Ländern und kulturellen Kontexten zu entdecken und hervorzuheben.
At the beginning street art was considered an illegal practice close to pure and simple vandalism, while now it is largely acknowledged as a relevant creative, artistic and social phenomenon. BLU, among others, contributed to shape this new creative practice and define its distinguishing marks: reclaiming free public space, breaking daily routines through surprise and finally sending out messages to its audience.
This group from New York was founded in 2001 under the slogan ?we cause scenes?. Since then, they have carried out more than 70 "missions" in public spaces managing to always create a strange mix of chaos and fun. The Influencers and Enmedio collective will coordinate a new "mission" in Barcelona!
Based in Berlin, Bismarck is the author of the "Image Fulgurator", among other projects. Bismarck hacked an analog photo camera (the so called "reflex") and literally reversed its normal functioning. This time it doesn't work to record the reality in front of the camera, but to perform just the opposite: the Image Fulgurator has a flash light behind the film that turns the camera into a projecting device. The image remains invisible to the human eye, but is recorded in the pictures shot by other people's cameras. When photographers look back at their images they find something unexpected: unknown images entered without permission the private or public space of their images.
Their successful intrusion in a weather programme on Czech television, where amongst the usual weather scenes they were able to infiltrate the image of an atomic bomb explosion, was spread massively over internet in 2007. This intervention was talked about all over Europe barely 24 hours afterwards and which they themselves called "Media Reality". They were reported by the television channel and the state prosecutor accused the six artists of generating panic and propagating false information, for which they faced up to three years in prison.
The Artists