Creative Acts

Here you can post different kinds of actions, useful tips for actions, etc...

During the night before Saint Valentines Day, 1400 traffic lights in Brussels were altered by a mysterious group of people. They pasted heart-shaped black plastic over the red light. Some of these lights are still spreading their love.

Some years ago we created a series of timemachines in public space. The good thing with timemachines is that they can bring you wherever you want, if their construction is good. As we forgot to keep them going, we lost track on them. But what happened with bypassers, who accidently got thrown into another era? Streetart is something temporary, stupid! We left our traces, and went on.

We found ourselves a way of brainstorming with objects in public space. Important is that you don’t prepare, you just do it. You look around in the city as if everything is your material. You look especially to objects that are loose: trash, a note, a bike tire. You search for ways to re-create what you found. Whith these actions, you change the meaning of objects in public space.
The act is simple, but effective. Playfull and without pretentions. You bring a bunch of prefixed images and texts, a lettergun, tape and some old magazines. You go into town and find yourself a good spot. It could be an electricity box or a piece of trash. You create it into something fantastic. Important is, that you create it 3-D. A lot of streetart is twodimensional, flat, as a drawing or text. This action is different: you are not writing on the wall, but changing the meaning of space. Your object turns into something else. They become a timemachine, a central post for urban communication, a temorary art exhibition or a hanging garden. Just in five minutes, you created something new and authentic. You walk on. Maybe it is gone next week, but the magic has had its effect. Of thousand bypassers, one should have been touched. And by the way, did you create just to impress? Important of your action was, that you changed the meaning of the world around you, you found yourself a new way of interacting with your envirtonment. You are no longer a passive consumer, but a creative actor. It gives you a magical feeling. Now just play on.

An action I liked a lot had the goal to cover in my hometown all advertisements that were at buss stops with poetry and literature. Whole A1 ands A0 papers were covered with copies of several pages of books or with a poem. In one night a lot of the advertisement places were de-advertised by the literature. In the early morning people were seen reading surprised while waiting for the buss. (Till the city cleaners came by off course, tidy town...)

Sunflowers in Brussels: (photo from brusselsfarmer)In Brussels, there is a group called Brussels Farmer that started planting sunflower seeds in public plantations in the city. They started with three people, but on some weekends they were with up to ten, and sometimes people they met asked for some seeds they could plant themselves. In total they planted about 40 000 seeds, of which 10 % came out. It's probably not completely legal to do this because they are planting in city property, but the police and other people working for the city that saw them planting didn't object to it, although in some places the sunflowers were ripped out of the ground by the city gardeners.

With this action they want to bring more green to the city, to take back some of the territory that humans took from nature. They also wanted to make a statement regarding bio-fuel made from sunflower oil.

A sunflower doesn't need much resources (it doesn't use much water and doesn't exhaust the soil) and produces a lot of healthy and edible products. It's oil can be used for biofuel, and people have positive sentiments when they see a sunflower which is always turned towards the sun.
By using biofuel, you reduce the amount of toxic gasses produces by cars in the city. It also makes the grey city more colorful.
Sunflowers are easy to plant, so anyone can do it. It's also very cheap: 100 seeds for €1.
They can also be planted in about every city worldwide which has a moderate climate.

Someone in Ghent has also started doing it. They hope that similar groups will start in other cities worldwide.

Their website (in French): http://brussels-farmer.blogspot.com

An article in Dutch: Flowerpower op de Kleine Ring
An article in German: DIE SONNENBLUMEN-GUERILLA

Similar initiative in London: Guerilla Gardening