The projects quick explanation- “Your Ad Here intends to explore the possibilities for expression and intervention
within the public transport system of the DART. Using the restrictive setting of
a public train carriage, Lucy staged temporary interventions. The
concepts range across several visual metaphors, from the political to the whimsical.
This work was created over a series of train journeys, the images were then printed
as posters that would fit inside the official DART advertising boards inside the
carriages. The common reaction was often that the image must have been digitally
manipulated as opposed to these scenarios actually occurring. This reaction
reinforces the apparent impenetrable nature of a publicly funded space.”

The exhibition will be in Moxie Studios, Dublin on the 24th of May as part of the IADT Graduate Show - https://www.facebook.com/IadtGradShow2012?ref=ts

(Click on the lower images to see larger) Ideas inspired by over-regulation, and ‘safety’ laws, ‘protecting’ people in ways that only limit them. Experimenting with a few ideas for this ‘wrapped up in cotton wool’ idea - the first style meant nights of papermache & hospital bandages!

So… having a carraige full of people wearing masks of your own face… definitely makes you wonder what the hell are you doing. I wanted to make an ‘Avatar-Land’, everyone wearing ‘profile pictures’, and without shooting everyone individually for their masks, I needed an every-man mask, and it just didnt make sense to choose someone arbitrarily, so I choose myself! And thus, this height of vanity occurred… I printed the masks in an Internet Cafe in Dun Laoghaire - trying to hide my embarrassment from the cashier as I printed off 20 unflattering A4 photographs of my face, and chopped them into masks.

I’ve been a bit obsessed with photo-masks since I first tried the idea out a few years ago - it’s eerily effective! So this all led to a carraige of friends & family wearing masks of my face - something to remember I guess!

None of these images will be in the final exhibition as I don’t think they worked - theyre quite busy/distracting, I think more uniform would have been better, so I went out again with 3 people dressed plainly and we made new ‘avatar-land’ images, which you can see at the exhibition & online after!

The Slumber

The latest poster! Look out for the image! It’s on a DART right now, one of the newer models with high seats, it left Greystones at 3.30pm (though theyre all delayed today) and it was the 3rd carraige from the southern front! If you see it, take a picture!

So, I went back and rode more Darts today, and I found 4 of them! So I took them down, which was sad in some ways, but I wanted to return everything to how it was yesterday - ‘leave no trace’ I suppose! But I couldnt find the train that has 8 of them, so going back again tonight to try and track it down, so if you see them - take a photo but also take them down if you can!

So…

I put posters up on the 11.30am train to Malahide leaving Greystones, meaning it would get to & leave Malahide at 1pm, then be back in Greystones at 2.30pm,

It would leave Greystones at 2.30pm and get to Malahide around 4pm, then it would get back to Greystones for 5.30pm

It will leave Greystones at 5.30pm and reach Malahide at 7pm, it would then get back to Greystones at 8.30pm,

It will leave Greystones as the 8.30 train, reaching Malahide at 10pm and getting back to Greystones at 11.15/20 and thats the end of the night…

Theres also images on a Dart that left Greystones at 12pm! So everything I just said +half an hour!

Theyre on the middle-ish carriages - I should have counted exactly where! If you find one - take a photo and email to yahproject@gmail.com or comment on this blog - Thanks!

A 24 hour Installation of images is now riding the DART lines!!

Theyre on two different Greystones-Malahide trains, carraiges 8107, 8111 and 8112,

(excuse the quality of these blurry photos- they were taken in a hurry!)

If you see them - please take a photograph and post it to this blog!

I’ll be returning and removing them tomorrow, if theyre still there - Yesterdays wasnt, so if you do catch any of them, document it please! Thanks!

You can send images or thoughts to yahproject@gmail.com or as a comment on this blog,

This is the first experimental installment…

A lot of this project has taken place off the dart in preparation. While I happily use Photoshop to enhance/tweak images, the important features of all these YAH images arent photoshopped - so I have a red pencil now that comes up to my shoulder (wooden garden stake painted red) and I have huge ‘antiquey’ frames (skirting board made into frames by my Grandad and decorated with polyfil & table tennis balls painted gold) and I’ve bandaged my sisters head entirely, hung briefcases from ceilings, filled the carriage with the smell of baby powder… all sorts of things, and Im plotting more daily…

I’ll update this post when I’m home with photos of all this process, lots of paper macheing & building!

Not to mention the angelic patience from so many friends, who gave up their mornings to come ride the dart  and lift deceptively heavy pencils….

My two big inspirations for this project were Jon Rafman and Kirsty O’Keefe.

Jon Rafman created photographs by making screen captures from Google street view. His images are sometimes hilarious, confusing, and scary, but other times theyre just strangely poignant and calm. They’re ‘setups’ I wish I had created myself! I’ve never really experimented with documentary photography - it was never something I wanted to do because I like constructing things, staging scenes, posing limbs, but Rafmans project makes me ache! It blurs lines between constructed photography / documentary / CCTV, and it’s just bloody interesting. See the project here - http://9eyes.com/

Kirsty OKeefe graduated from DIT in 2010 I think, and I saw her work in the Gallery of Photography, Dublin. Like Rafmans, her project ’ Something else to do but hang around suburbia’ equally made me ache with jealousy! It was exactly the kind of photography I love - it embraced construction and exaggeration, while still commenting on the environment she was exploring. Also, it included post-its, and I really like post-its. http://www.thejoinery.org/events/kirsty-o-keeffe

So I thought this project of mine could incorporate and embrace elements from both of these people - a mix of documentation, plays on CCTV, and also surreal, staged visual metaphors!

This project was tentatively called ‘Your Ad Here’

Imagining if the walls of the publicly funded train system could possibly be open to the public themselves - could there be bulletin boards, for people to post their own services / look for others? The train runs through local areas and connects people around the coast, it seems like a natural thought that these people might be able to help each other / get help from each other, “I need a plumber” or “I am a plumber” tacked onto a board, where both parties are connected by the train.