Photo: Still from NO AD Day 2014 by Vermibus
Berlin-based street artist Vermibus was part of a global action on 27 November 2014 called NO AD Day – an attempt to reduce the exposure of consumers to advertising on Black Friday – and has now published a video documenting the project.
Vermibus describes NO AD Day in the description of the video on his Vimeo channel:
Over-consumption and the unchecked use of our natural resources to serve that consumption, is wreaking havoc on our environment and on our minds. Our unabated need for the latest products and ideas leaves us only wanting more, at the expense of the world around us. Fueling this unchecked desire is a commercial media whose goal is the promotion of more consumption through every outlet known. Newspapers, Magazines, Television, the Internet, and even the Public Space that we collectively share, all serve to promote our desire for more.
In an effort to examine the issue of over-consumption, “Buy Nothing Day” began in 1992 by artist Ted Dave, and participants were asked to refrain from purchasing goods for 24hrs. 22 years later this single act of defiance has grown into a worldwide movement that now takes place in 65 countries and includes thousands of participants. We have begun “NO AD Day” in solidarity with the “Buy Nothing Day” movement, and as an extension of our activist projects dealing with outdoor advertising in Public Space. Participants in “NO AD Day” are asked to remove as much outdoor advertising as they can the day before Buy Nothing Day, in an effort to eliminate the commercial media messages which dominate our public spaces.
We believe that curbing our over-consumption requires we take a hard look at the commercial messages which dominate all media outlets, and whose conceits we cannot escape. We also believe that extraditing ourselves from the commercial media system is the best way to gain control over our consumption behaviors. Our public spaces, dominated by commercial media, make gaining distance impossible. By eliminating the commercial media which dominate our public spaces we can begin to more fully gain control of our desire to consume, and address the issues surrounding “Buy Nothing Day”, and the rampant over consumption which threatens our civilization.
“NO AD Day” is about controlling the over saturation of our minds and environment by commercial media, so that we might address our consumptive needs in a more meaningful and productive way.
NO AD Day 2014
If you’d like to see more ad-busting street art from Vermibus in Berlin and across Europe check out Vermibus – Berlin Fashion Week Interventions 2015 and Vermibus – Dissolving Europe: The Ad-busting Street Artist At Work.
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