wir sind GEWITZTA
7 Jul
At a “one afternoon” exhibition at the anarchistic “BAHÖ Infoshop Lolligo Vienna” we presented some tools for DIY citymodification.
Like the hex driver for opening advertisment lightboxes at bus- and tramway stations.
With that “key” one can easily open the lightboxes, take out the ad-posters, modificate or change it and put it back in.
Another modification tool was the QuickpasteKit which consisted of a brush combinated with a small bin for paste.
This package came with some CutOuts so one just had to fill up the bin with paste and go out on the streets.
The third tool were some ready-to-use stencils.
Everything came with a fictional corporate identity and label design.
The backside
and the front
The name GEWITZTA is a wordplay.
The company that owns nearly all the advertisment areas in Vienna is called GEWISTA and the modification to GEWITZTA means “shrewd”.
So that is of course an artistic attack against the monopoly of a huge advertisment area providing company.
In Austria free placarding is anchored in the right of freedom of expression but the company which is providing the areas for advertisment wanted to make a monopoly on this and remove every poster (placarded by e.g. small cultural institutions) to achieve that those institutions had to pay high prices for placarding in the city.
This affected political movements as well. For there are nearly no free areas provided by the city and the company for placarding.
(The title of this article says: “We are more shrewd”.)
