Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Viktor Frankl
I am responding to all the furtive messages and concealed directives that are imposed on us every day and everywhere in the city environment. Whether it's banners on the sides of buildings telling us how considerate their conctructors are or corporate slogans catching our eye (and mind) in the many deviously placed billboards here and there, the concealed imperative is everywhere. It's in the movies, it's in catchy tunes (and uncatchy ones), it's in our adverts, our telly programs, plastered all over our cities. And just like the John Carpenter film They Live if you distill these movies, ads, tunes, down to their essence, they tell us but one thing: CONSUME, OBEY, DIE, all in glorious capitals. Yet, as a living creature trying to be, I have a right to reply to this nonsense. As an animal I have a natural right to respond. No one can argue with that. Response, reaction to action, fighting back when attacked, is natural. Even science will confirm this to be true. I have a right thus to 'stencil' (as a form of 'wild and natural responding'), and to respond in the most appropriate way I can. An animal that is attacked by another animal doesn't get out a pen and paper, it fights back in kind and in the same way as the animal attacking it.
Viktor Frankl
I am responding to all the furtive messages and concealed directives that are imposed on us every day and everywhere in the city environment. Whether it's banners on the sides of buildings telling us how considerate their conctructors are or corporate slogans catching our eye (and mind) in the many deviously placed billboards here and there, the concealed imperative is everywhere. It's in the movies, it's in catchy tunes (and uncatchy ones), it's in our adverts, our telly programs, plastered all over our cities. And just like the John Carpenter film They Live if you distill these movies, ads, tunes, down to their essence, they tell us but one thing: CONSUME, OBEY, DIE, all in glorious capitals. Yet, as a living creature trying to be, I have a right to reply to this nonsense. As an animal I have a natural right to respond. No one can argue with that. Response, reaction to action, fighting back when attacked, is natural. Even science will confirm this to be true. I have a right thus to 'stencil' (as a form of 'wild and natural responding'), and to respond in the most appropriate way I can. An animal that is attacked by another animal doesn't get out a pen and paper, it fights back in kind and in the same way as the animal attacking it.
Response cannot be filtered through 'established channels' without destroying it. Response must be spontaneous: this is what response is. To be spontaneous is to re-spond. Telling you to 'respond through established channels' of the very medium you are trying to expose is like telling the animal being attacked to fight back by filling out a form. That is, it's absurd when it isn't downright insulting.
And so, this bridge that I have stencilled is nothing more than my response to all those messages hidden in plain sight and which most people swallow hook, line and sinker, without even knowing it. Not anymore however. The responder has stood up and responded.
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