Cc: Everybody is a project by Brianna McCarthy and myself in which tiny black & white classified ads from the local daily newspapers are reproduced, word for word, on huge, colourful, hand-painted 'party signs' (a traditional style of guerilla advertising used here to blast event details to everyone passing in the street ["Cc-ing" everybody]).
The intention is to play with the varying levels of intended 'publicness' of the classifieds to try and open up discussion about their changing appearance, and to document the change. Are we cool with this being public info? If yes, is it okay to blast these messages louder than their original size, or can we only say it so loud? A decade ago, ads like these didn't exist, so there's actually a lot of information in them about how we're communicating with each other right now.
The title of each piece is the date it was published and the newspaper it was published in. These two are "Trindad Guardian, 20 April, 2011" (Text…) and "Daily Express Classifieds, 20 APR, 2011" (Gaza…).
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A note on the change in process/aesthetic in making last year's signs compared to these new ones:
Last year's signs, if you're familiar with the incredibly skilfully painted street signs popularised by Bruce Cayone, possibly seemed a little inauthentic. Maybe they fell into the uncanny valley because, try as we did, given our level of experience making signs, they were no Cayones. This year we realised that instead of speaking a less-than-fluent version of that language, we would embrace our own dialect/tools/skills and produce what would still be recognised by any trini as a party sign, but maybe just another/newer kind. This version does away with horizontal color banding in favour of vertical, textured washes and introduces the use of ornament in the form of lino prints, metallic inks and gold dust in addition to the traditional emulsion. The lettering is also much improved. We are extremely pleased with the movement.
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installation/detail views:
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