Don’t get me wrong, I think free speech is the bee’s knees. I may disagree with every idiotic thing you spags say, but I’ll defend to my death your right to say it. That being said, do corporations deserve these rights too?

If they were human beings, I’d totally be defending their right to spend their resources compromising political interests. But they’re not people. They’re constructs, collaborative fictions which we created. They don’t get to vote. They can’t serve in the military. We can’t put them in jail when they break the law. They’re not people, I don’t see why they should get the same rights as we mere mortals.

I can’t just sit still while I’m so pissed off. So I made these posters.

Posters, in no particular order:

• Equal Rights for Corporations
• End Minority Oppression
• Consumption is Democratic
• Marriage Equality Matters
• End Discrimination

Equal Rights for Corporations

Volume Butts

It was hastily thrown together at the last minute before my cabal got on a plane to Portland, Oregon for Esozone 2008. As such, it contains a lot of random crap. You will also see traces of my obsession with the font Artiststamp. It’s so perfect for posters!

Esozone was … interesting. Portland is one of those crazy places where Discordians seem to gather in real life. It’s a really cool city, and I think we should all move there.

I didn’t spend a lot of time at Esozone, (I spent most of the vacation biking around with other Discordians and putting up posters) but there was a Discordian caucus in which they actually managed to get at least 23 of us in the same room at the same time. It’s the densest collection of Discordians I’ve ever seen in the flesh. So to this day, this poster pack reminds me of St. Mae, Metaphorge, and Johnny Brainwash, Telarus, Nigel, and Netatungrot, my favorite west coast 23rdian spags.

There’s a great anecdote out there about a Calvinball poster being mistaken for an actual Homeland Security poster, and causing some panic and paranoia in the people throwing esozone. So these things totally work, provided they catch your target at 6 AM as they’re opening day two of a convention. Hail Eris!

A poster from the Calvinball Poster Pack

Calvinball is the third installment of POSTERGASM poster packs. The theme here is:

• imposing / removing rules in public spaces
• creating the illusion (or reality!) that the reader is in the midst of a game

There are a lot of posters which imply a game is being played all around you. These are riffs on the following meme bomb: “Congradulations! You’ve just found clue #5 – the man in the green jacket will tell you what to do next.”

We also wanted to play with Games of Authority, so there are several posters in this pack which masquerade as missives from the department of homeland security. Pranksters are pressured to take paranoid precautions when putting up such perilous posters.

Calvinball is a reference to a game played by Calvin and Hobbes, in which they make up the rules as they go along. Many Discordians see this as an apt metaphor for life, or at least a good distraction from shrieking the word MONEY over and over again at the top of your lungs for your entire life.

New England PosterGASM meet up in Boston, May 2007

Postergasm: Volume Dingus was the second poster pack to grace Project PosterGASM.

I was studying the life cycle of public postings. I found that some types of things, when stapled to trees, telephone poles, or whatever, were taken down almost immediately. Other things seemed to stay up much longer. It made me wonder what properties help things stick around when you make changes in your environment.

I hypothesized that there are people out there who take down my posters because they don’t belong. These people feel that they’re “cleaning up” the neighborhood by removing these things. So the effort with Dingus was to create posters which look like they belong there.

In my old neighborhood, posters which talk about missing cats, apartments for rent, tag sales, and other “official” communications seemed to last longer than silly nonsense posters. So I tried to disguise my silly nonsense as one of those “accepted” communications.

There are also some posters which are supposed to look like they’re from scary government agencies. Sometimes these survive because people are afraid to take them down.

I did note that the Dingus posters survived a lot longer than the posters in Volume Aleph. Based on that, I think the project was ultimately successful.

Bonus Activity: PosterGASM, as an experiment in guerrilla surrealism, may have the ability to play interesting semantic games. You could put up posters of recognizable art–stuff like the Mona Lisa, or a more topical painting like Munch’s The Scream. The idea here is to connect the posters all over the neighborhood with the word “art” in the minds of the people who are “cleaning up”. They might think a meme bomb is a graffiti, but it’s hard to think of Monet’s Starry Night as vandalism!

I have a little brown messenger bag which waits by the door for me like a puppy wanting to go out.

In my bag, I carry a few pages of stickers, some markers, post-it notes, pope cards, my notebook, a camera, two fake mustaches, and a folder containing a few hundred posters. I like to walk around the neighborhood, putting up fliers, making changes to signs, and generally having fun.

One day, past midnight, a one-eyed bum approached me on the street. “What’ve ya got there?” he asked. “I seen your pictures around the neighborhood. What ARE you doing?” This question always stumps me. It’s a funtime activity I’ve never really attached a name to other than “putting up stuff”.

Searching my brain for a quick explanation, I eventually told him, “It’s art,” but the word stuck in my throat. Well I guess you could argue that anything is art, but I don’t really consider this art.

I lay in bed that night, the question turning over in my mind: What AM I doing?

For one, I’m taking back my environment and gradually transforming it into the place I want it to look like. I just like making everybody’s day a little bit more surreal, and this is a really visible way of doing it.

For two, I know that somewhere out there, there are other people like me. Other people who appreciate these weird little intrusions into pedestrian reality. My posters are signposts saying “I’m here, and you’re not alone.”

And for three, it sends the message to everyone that public spaces are public property. We all modify our environment by living in it. The sounds and smells and rhythms of the neighborhood are an organic reflection of its occupants. Putting up posters is just like trimming the hedges or mowing the lawn.

Walking through the neighborhood with my bag over my shoulder, my cabal at my side, I’m reminded of don Juan Matus and Carlos Castaneda on their way to Ixtlan, trying to walk with the entities and intelligences of the desert. We’re urban shamans, befriending the spirit of the neighborhood. While you go on your ventures, I recommend this attitude, one of respect and stewardship for your environment, your companion on this journey.

On Mondays (for the next few months, at least), I’ll be posting various print-and-play resources. Most of them will be posters or poster collections, but expect some pamphlets and misc. dada sheets as well.

POSTERGASM: Volume Aleph was the first POSTERGASM collection. To be fair, it wasn’t called POSTERGASM yet, but this was one of the seeds which kicked it off.

You can view / download / print Volume Aleph here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/11251009/Postergasm-Collection-Volume-Aleph

Aleph consists of numerous one-line-meme-bombs. These things are brainstormed and workshopped by the insufferable spags at peedy dotcom (reg required to see thread). The art of the one line meme bomb is difficult to describe. The meme must evoke a mental charge, ripple, or spiral in the subject. It is an art, not a science. Meme Bombs might challenge societal assumptions, social protocol, or inner disrupt monologue. They might be provocative, funny, edgy, cool, or surprising. But they do not have to be anything. The only real rule is “does it work”? If you read one which makes you go “Hah!” or “Hmm”, pass it on.

I believe that meme bombs are more attractive when paired with visual imagery. So these posters have dingbats and little stamps to draw the eye.