general howe – Vandalog – A Street Art Blog

December 16, 2013May 31, 2015

Viral Art is now available at ViralArt.net

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Two weeks ago, I announced that Viral Art: How the internet has shaped street art and graffiti, my new ebook, was set to launch on December 16th. Excerpts have appeared on Hyperallergic, Complex.com and Brooklyn Street Art, I was interviewed over at Graffuturism and the book even got a shout-out from Shepard Fairey. Well, today’s the day. Viral Art is live and you can read it now at ViralArt.net and download it as a PDF or find it in the iBooks Store now.

I want to thank everyone who has been sharing the news about Viral Art these last two weeks, especially everyone who supported the Thunderclap campaign. Just this afternoon, there have been over 200 posts about Viral Art across Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. So, a big thank you to everyone who participated in that. Promoting this book is an entirely grassroots effort, and I’ll be forever grateful for your help.

In case you didn’t catch that last post or you’ve forgotten, here’s a reminder of what Viral Art is all about…

What is Viral Art?

It’s an ebook that you can read online or download to your computer or ereader. It’s full of text, hyperlinks, photos, animated GIFs and embedded videos.

What is Viral Art about?

Viral Art traces how the histories of street art and graffiti have been shaped by communication technologies, from trading photos by hand to publishing books to sharing videos online. It’s the most comprehensive look to date at how the internet has affected street art and graffiti. Conceptualizing the internet as a public space, I conclude the book by arguing that the future of street art and graffiti may lie in digital interventions rather than physical ones.

Why does Viral Art matter?

If you want to understand street art and graffiti, you have to understand how books, movies, magazines, photographs and the internet have affected artists and fans. Viral Art gets into all of that.

Today we live on our laptops and smartphones, so I argue that the best way for street art and graffiti to stay relevant is for artists to take over the public space of the internet. It’s a claim sure to cause controversy in the street art, graffiti and internet art communities.

Viral Art isn’t just another street art book cheer-leading the movement on. It’s history and theory with a critical stance, and my plea to keep the core values of street art and graffiti alive in a digital world.

What else is inside?

In researching for this project, I interviewed over 50 members of the street art and graffiti communities. In Viral Art, you’ll find brand new interviews, quotes and anecdotes from Banksy, Shepard Fairey, KATSU, Poster Boy, Ron English, Martha Cooper and many more.

Another cool touch is the cover, which you can see at the top of this post. It’s an animated GIF designed by General Howe, featuring artwork by Diego Bergia, General Howe and Jay Edlin, as well as photographs by Martha Cooper and myself.

What does this “book” cost?

Nothing. You can read Viral Art for free at ViralArt.net. There are also PDF and EPUB versions available for download.

How can fans support the book?

This book is the result of two and a half years of mostly-unpaid labor. It’s being self-published. My marketing budget consists of a few bucks for ads on Facebook. Major publishers spend thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars marketing everything they produce, but this project has no book tour or publicist or anything like that. There’s only your support. If Viral Art sounds interesting, or you read it and you think it is interesting, please tell your friends.

Where can people read Viral Art?

Just go here to read it online, or you can also download it to your computer or ereader.

February 11, 2013February 9, 2013

General Howe’s “Disasters of War” gif series

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General Howe has been putting up street art since at least 2007. His recent work may seem like quite a change of direction, but I don’t think the change is as drastic as it might at first seem, although it is significant. Like Insa, General Howe has begun making animated gifs. In my most recent post on Complex.com, I pointed out a few artists who I think are using the internet like a street artist or graffiti writer uses the street, and not only do I not think that’s crazy, I think that shift is fantastic. I’m not saying that street artists should stop working on the street, but I am saying that the internet has opened up a lot of new opportunities for artists to interact with the general public (kinda like street art), and it’s exciting to see artists taking advantage of those opportunities. A piece of street art can be seen by a lot of people, but an animated gif can go viral. There are a lot of gif artists out there, but I want to point out General Howe specifically for two reasons: 1. His Disasters of War series has some work that just makes my jaw drop, and 2. He has worked on the street for years and then transitioned to animated gifs.

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These pieces are all from General Howe’s Disasters of War series. Goya for the digital generation. For the series, General Howe has appropriated imagery from the G.I. Joe animated television series and modified them into gifs that deal with issues of war and terror. Something about these just stops me in my tracks.

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One sidenote: I can’t post all these animations without also mentioning Winter In America, an equally impressive short film by Hank Willis Thomas and Kambui Olujimi that also deals with violence through G.I. Joe figures which happens to be part of a show of Hank Willis Thomas’ work on now at the gallery where I work outside of Philadelphia.

More from General Howe after the jump… Continue reading “General Howe’s “Disasters of War” gif series”

August 5, 2009

General Howe in NYC

General Howe emailed me recently about his work, and I think it’s something well worth checking out. My friend and I glued some toy soldiers to the street last year, but we just did it for fun. I like the fact that General Howe actually has a point to his work. Here’s what he said:

For just about two years now I have been spreading the streets of Brooklyn with British colonial toy soldiers in locations where Americans and British fought in the Battle of Brooklyn. The Commanding General of the British was General Howe, which I have taken as my street art identity.

The research and experiences of doing this work has led me to my most recent project, Remains of Wallabout Bay. I have been making linoleum cut images of bones and remains of dead American soldiers from the Revolutionary war. The British captured thousands of American soldiers and would keep them on prison ships docked in Wallabout Bay a.k.a. Brooklyn Navy Yard. When these unfortunate soldiers would die, their bodies were discarded over the side of the ship, I imagine in similar fashion to trash and waste that is discarded in this same area today.

This work stemmed from having so many different emotions about the U.S. being in Afghanistan and Iraq. My thoughts kept bringing me back to past wars we’ve been involved in and thinking of the question, what would we do if foreign armies invaded and occupied our own country?

This work has been fun and meaningful and I look foreword to making work on the street for years to come.

And here’s some of his work…

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Check out more at General Howe’s flickr