Social patterns in the urban landscape manifest in the billboard. Subliminal messages either reflecting cultural values or advocating for current marketable trends of consumer exploitation spring from screens sown into the cityscape.  Ad Attack is a series of documented public ads programming the consumer. These are one-minute videos sampling the messages embedded in the advertising campaign, the chosen weapon which Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays established 80 years ago that would ignite the consumer society. Snapshots of public advertisements are taken from subway stations and street signs in cities around the world including: Beijing, New York and Paris. Reoccuring patterns are noticed in each culture’s advertising campaigns: Beijing emphasized improvement of quality of life, New York-security and Paris-sexuality.

Today’s  Great Wall of China, 2013
TRT: 00:01:14
produced in Beijing, China

Ad Attack, NYC 2014
TRT: 00:01: 28
produced in New York City