We love stealth art campaigns here at the Good News Network, like PARK(ing) spots created in San Francisco, and soon to be in DC, the traffic cone art, and the ultimate artist bandit who added a helpful route number to a California freeway sign.
This summer, John Morse created “Roadside Haiku,” an installation of nearly 500 ‘bandit signs’ throughout the city of Atlanta, each offering one of ten different haiku. Though at a glance they look like typical signs offering weight loss, quick money, debt counseling, etc., upon closer inspection the 17-syllable haiku reveals poetic perspectives on the urban condition, easily consumed during the brief seconds of a traffic stop.
My favorite is pictured above:
Meet Local Singles!!
Easy: Stand Near Others,
Hang Up Your Cell Phone.
“There’s a great deal of bad in the world, and one of the few things that ameliorates the cruelties of the world is art,” he was quoted saying by an article in the Guardian. “A little bit of art can do a great deal of good. And I want to spend my life doing something good … Will it be good? I don’t know. But I’m going to try.”
He even created a Google map of their locations — each is numbered and signed, like an art collection. They appear along well-traveled roadways in Atlanta, including, Buford Highway, Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and Memorial Drive.