New App Transforms the NYC Subway Advertisements into Street Art

https://vimeo.com/105301636

Advertisements are like death, taxes and the idea of the Jets not making the Super Bowl this season. An inevitable aspect of life, especially life in NYC. Not all of them are terrible but the majority of ads millions of New Yorker’s normally see inside subway stations are often those for weak McDonald’s coffee, crappy TV shows, movies we hope no one actually pays to see, and products that we have no plan on using, like moon boots (STOP TRYING TO MAKE MOON BOOTS HAPPEN!).

What if we could see more art underground? One of the most memorable things Keith Haring is remembered for is painting on the subway stations, bringing art that would later be seen only in museums to the people underground. This week, we discovered a new app called NO AD. It was developed by a team of designers and street art enthusiasts including the Public Ad Campaign, Heavy Projects (Re + Public), and street blogger and photographer Jowy Romano. The basis of this app is to make the subway stations we ride everyday to work, to bars, to our romantic spouse who lives on the other side of the city into a digital art experience.

Continue reading for a video demonstrating the app and a listing of the artists involved in the project.

The app is simple to use. Just click the app and put your phone/tablet across any one of the 100 most popular advertisements in the NYC subway system, once the app recognizes the ad, a piece of art or video will show on the screen. So far 50 street artists have been recruited for this project. The names included are some of the most well known and well respected artists in NYC and worldwide.

Artists include: Beau Staton, Caroline Caldwell, Dal East, Elle, Faith 47, Icy & Sot, Jay Shells, Jeff Stark, Jilly Ballistic, Luna Park, LNY, Logan Hicks, Micheal De Feo, Ron English, Rone, Saber, Sheryo, Stikman, Tara Mcpherson, TRAP and many more. With new advertisements replacing the old ones, so will the artwork, with more artists being brought in to contribute to this project. And the app is free on iTunes and Google Play.

For an equally mind blowing experience, use Tunnel Vision to see real-time transit activity by pointing your camera at a subway map.

To contact the author and help get his new app off the ground, one that he has not named or thought of, hit him up on twitter @TatteredFedora