MaSAT - Madrid Street Advertising Takeover

At 5:30am on March 30th, four stealthy teams of people took to the streets of Madrid, Spain. It took them but an hour to execute the mission. 106 text-based posters replaced 106 advertisements in four different busy areas of Madrid.

Unlike the incredible imagery from the previous NYSAT and ToSAT takeovers, this time around, 106 people from varying walks of life were asked to submit a piece of text via email. The text was to be printed black and white and inserted into the adspace, all by the team in Madrid. The choice to use only text, dramatically broadened the scope of voices being heard. Instead of just artists, the voices of "a wide range of individuals including sociologist, teachers, lawyers, gallery owners and anyone with a concern for the curation and participation in public space." said organizer, curator and PublicAdCampaign founder Jordan Seiler. Bringing these new voices to the conversation in the streets is a big step forward in the fight for our democratic right to use and utilize public space.

I have the utmost respect for the people that give their time and efforts to projects such as these. Hats off to Jordan and the teams in Madrid, thank you. The photo above was my submission, it is the chorus to the last song on my upcoming album. I was writing the song when i got the invite from Jordan, and saw an opportunity to share some of the positivity i was feeling at that moment in the advertising space, as opposed to my usual critiques.

Do yourself a favour and check out the Madrid Street Advertising Takeover site and browse through the artist list, there are some truly wonderful pieces.

While there were no arrests this time around, all of the posters had been removed within five hours.



A few years back, NYSAT was a project that partly inspired Vegas and i to start our own ad takeover campaign, that we called V-TARP - The Vancouver Transit Adspace Re-appropriation Project. Over 33 artorks were installed on the privately owned public transit system before a cease and desist email came our way. Some news on the status of V-TARP is just around the corner.