Archive for December, 2008
My middle name just changed from O. to M.
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
From O. for Olivia to M. for Maecenas. A famous role model, named Gaius Maecenas (lived 70 – 8 BC) to be precise who was a life-long patron of arts. The big difference between Mr. M. and me is pretty small. While he spent a fortune to support the work of talented young artists, I scrape my savings together to hang up paintings of middle aged men. Don’t get me wrong, I love the paintings of Armin Hartenstein and Jörn Stoya that preffify my living room. Having sufficient funds though to sponsor the talent of a young promising painter or sculptor and seeing this artist grow, simply must feel exhilarating. I developed my appetite for letting someone else enjoy what I scrimped and saved over the last few months (just kidding) by winning the art sponsorship price for the support of an artist who focussed his career on photography.
I didn’t actually invest a dime, I just came up with an ambitious idea. A promotional campaign to be honest. Here we go. Art and advertising. Are you disgusted? You shouldn’t be. If messages surround the holy piece of imagery in a tasteful way, artists are indeed happy for the platform to demonstrate their art and themselves.
Epamedia, Austria’s largest public space company created that platform throughout the entire city of Vienna. The main protagonist: a small statue, only 11 cm tall. Her name: The Venus of Willendorf. It’s only 100 years ago that this 25.000 year old lady was discovered in the remote hills of Wachau, Austria’s arguably most beautiful wine region. The little historical relique has been displayed in the Natural History Museum of Vienna and has fallen into oblivion ever since.
Lois Lammerhuber and I
When Lois Lammerhuber, an Austrian photographer of international renown, approached the museum to propose a unique book idea, the museum’s curator immediately agreed. To celebrate the 100th birthday of her discovery, Lois wanted the statue to appear in a different way.
He zoomed in on the valuable figurine and took shots of certain body parts that nobody, except archaeologists and museum curators, had ever laid their eyes upon.
© Lois Lammerhuber
When I saw these fascinating photos, I knew I had to find a platform for a large audience to enjoy these unanticipated views. A few thoughts later, I stood in Markus Schuster’s office, Epamedia’s junior boss, and introduced the marketing campaign idea. Many meetings and lots of discussions later, the company’s board came to a decision. The photo project would be supported by presenting the high impact and value of public space media. The billboard represented as a huge outdoor canvas, the city light allowing interaction between observer, art lover and the message. Bringing art to a large audience outside of dusty museum walls, beautifying the public space and educating people whose mind got artfully inspired by seeing these close-up photographs which should stimulate a cultural sense of delight in a similar way than Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa does.
We also added applications to the media, testing the society’s willingness to receive our message. We gave away museum tickets, offered information download on the statue and a little mobile phone game. The use of SMS, Bluetooth, image recognition and QR code technology was applied and tested.
The results of the campaign proved our expectations right. Over 20% of people downloaded the bluetooth game. Hundreds of people downloaded the QR code reader, double as much used the scanner to read more about the figurine. While the use of image recognition wasn’t high, it still showed that there are many people out there interested to pull information from an advertising board.
Being awarded with such a prestigious prize gave me a kick to get increasingly involved in the arty design of our public space.