The Bubble Project, as proclaimed by its
manifesto
A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...
, aims to counteract corporate
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
and
advertisement
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
messages in public spaces.
The project was conceived by
Ji Lee
Ji Lee is Executive Vice President of the Global Marketing Center at Samsung Electronics in Korea and former Creative Director at Facebook, Google, and the advertising agency Droga5. Lee's wide range of works covers the fields of advertising, graph ...
, an artist and art director who originally printed 15,000
sticker
A sticker is a type of label: a piece of printed paper, plastic, vinyl, or other material with temporary or permanent pressure sensitive adhesive on one side. It can be used for decoration or for functional purposes, depending on the situation. ...
s that look like
speech bubbles
Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comics, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing a charac ...
used in
comic strips
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...
. He posts these blank speech bubbles on top of
advertisement
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
s throughout
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
allowing anyone who sees them to write in their comments and thoughts. By filling in the bubbles people engage in the project and transform "the corporate monologue into an open dialogue".
The Bubble Project quickly gained popularity and independent efforts have sprung up in other parts of the world in countries such as
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
or
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
.
On June 1, 2006, a book written by Lee was released. It explains the whole idea behind the project and shows the best pictures taken in the first 4 years, showing the results of the project.
See also
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Culture jamming
Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It atte ...
External websites
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bubble Project
Anti-consumerist groups
Culture jamming
Graffiti and unauthorised signage
Stickers