Street Art And Outdoor Advertisements

113 Pages·2010·2.68 MB·English

Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

Street Art
And
Outdoor Advertisements
The Relationship between Street Art and Outdoor
Advertisements in Istiklal and Bağdat Avenues, in
Istanbul
Melike Kıratlı
Mürvet İrem Şirin

Master of Applied Cultural Analysis Supervisors
Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences Jonas Frykman
TKAM01 - Spring 2010 Robert Willim

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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

Abstract
STREET ART AND OUTDOOR ADVERTISEMENTS:
―The relationship between street art and outdoor advertisements
on Istiklal and Bağdat Avenues in Istanbul”
Melike Kıratlı & Mürvet İrem Şirin
This thesis focuses on both street art and outdoor advertisements in Istanbul.
Specifically, we chose Istiklal and Bağdat Avenues as our fieldwork areas to conduct
our research. With its cosmopolitan structure Istiklal Avenue and high-standard
lifestyle Bağdat Avenue together represent Istanbul to understand the multifaceted
nature of social, cultural and political identities of the society. In relation to variations,
working in two different districts is a crucial reference to discover various
perspectives of citizens of Istanbul regarding our subjects: street art and outdoor
advertisements.
Since this project is conducted from a cultural analysts‘ point of view, we aim
to analyze the cultural reflections of the society from visual materials on the streets.
At that point, in addition to the desk research about these subjects, we were out-of-
home as well. We aim to gain a ―subjective‖ perspective of the understanding of street
art and outdoor advertisements from citizens‘ narratives on the basis of one of our
research questions: ―how do we react to space and its contents.‖
Our main inspiration for this research is the power of invisible, hidden codes
to discover taken for granted inclusionary and exclusionary definitions of cultural
elements. For us, street art and outdoor advertisements are visible, part of our visual
memory but they are not ―visible‖ in everyday routines. One is accepted as ―normal‖
within capitalist system; the other is accepted as one of the alternative ways of
people‘s self-expression who are excluded from this system. We analyze these
stereotypical understandings through structuring both of them on the same scene; on
streets. We questioned the existence of relationship between street art and outdoor
advertisements; and their possible legitimization ways; and their place in people‘s
minds through our two case studies. According to our cases‘ advertisement
campaigns, which combines advertisement with street art; we chose Vodafone ―Free
Mobile‖ campaign as a global brand and Alpella ―Ole‖ campaign as a local brand.
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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

Keywords: Street Art; Outdoor Advertising; new channels of communication;
consumer society; public space; power relations; postmodernism; everyday culture;
the youth; street.

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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

Title of thesis:

Authors:

Program: Master of Applied Cultural Analysis (120ECST)

This thesis is submitted to the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

Grade:

__________________ ___________________ ____________________
Place date Examiner Signature

__________________ ___________________ ___________________
Place date Supervisor Signature

__________________ ___________________ ___________________
Place date Supervisor Signature

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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Jonas Frykman and Robert Willim for their guidance and
suggestions for our thesis.

It is a pleasure to thank those who made this thesis possible, our informants, even
‗complete strangers‘ who became part of our thesis in taking our critical perspective
for the ‗analysis of messages‘ surrounding us every day.

We are deeply grateful to our friends who helped us get through our stressful times
and for their emotional support and advices during this long process.

We would like to thank our family members for their never ending encouragement,
support and love during the completion of the project.

We owe our deepest gratitude to each other. This thesis would not have been possible
unless we worked together in such harmony, in and out of the project. We shared all
of our happy and also our most difficult times together.

Istanbul, 2010-05-24
Melike Kıratlı & Mürvet İrem Şirin

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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

List of figures

Figure 4.1-1: Street Art on Bağdat Avenue
Figure 4.1-2: Street Art on Bağdat Avenue
Figure 4.1-3: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.1-4: Street Art on Bağdat Avenue
Figure 4.1-5: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.1-6: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.1-7: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.1-8: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.1-9: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.1-10: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.2-11: Picture of Istanbul
Figure 4.2-12: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.2-13: Picture of a signboard (Taksim Avenue)
Figure 4.2-14: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.2-15: Picture of Bağdat Avenue
Figure 4.2-16: Picture of Bağdat Avenue
Figure 4.3-17: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.3-18: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.3-19: Outdoor Advertisement on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.3-20: Outdoor Advertisement on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.5-21: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.5-22: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.5-23: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.5-24: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.5-25: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.5-26: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.5-27: Outdoor Advertisement on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.5-28: Picture of Taksim Square
Figure 4.5-29: Outdoor Advertisement on Bağdat Avenue
Figure 4.6-30: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.6-31: Street Art on Kadıköy
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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

Figure 4.6-32: Street Art on Bağdat Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.6-33: Outdoor Advertisement on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.6-34: Outdoor Advertisement on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.6-35: Outdoor Advertisement on Taksim
Figure 4.6-36: Outdoor Advertisement on Istiklal Avenue
Figure 4.6-37: Outdoor Advertisement on Bağdat Avenue
Figure 4.6-38: Picture of Vodafone billboard
Figure 4.6-39: Picture of Alpella Ole advertisement
Figure 4.6-40: Outdoor Advertisement on Bağdat Avenue (sticker)
Figure 4.6-41: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.6-42: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 4.6-43: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 5.1-44: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 5.1-45: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 5.1-46: Street Art on Bağdat Avenue
Figure 5.1-47: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 5.1-48: Street Art on Istiklal Avenue (stencil)
Figure 6.2-49: Outdoor Advertisement on Bağdat Avenue
Figure 6.2-50: Outdoor Advertisement on Bağdat Avenue

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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract _______________________________________________ 2-3
Acknowledgements ______________________________________ 5
List of figures ___________________________________________ 6-7
Table of contents ________________________________________ 8-9

1. Introduction __________________________________________ 10-13

1.1 Background, Aims and Objectives __________________ 10-11
1.2 Aim and Research Questions ______________________ 11-12
1.3 Overview and Thesis Structure _____________________ 13

2. State of The Art _______________________________________ 13-20

2.1 History of Street Art and Advertisement ______________ 14-17
2.2 Our Aim through Preliminary Literature ______________ 17-20

3. Theoretical Framework _________________________________ 20-29

3.1 ―Where there is power, there is resistance‖ ____________ 20-22
3.2 ―You cannot have postmodernism without modernism‖___ 22-24
3.3 Transformation of everyday culture __________________ 25-27
3.4 ―The production of space‖ _________________________ 27-29

4. Empirical Materials and Analysis ________________________ 29-78

4.1 Methodological Approach _________________________ 29-39
4.2 Sites of Interest _________________________________ 40-53
4.3 Re-definitions __________________________________ 53-58
4.4 Demographic Remarks ___________________________ 58-59
4.5 The place of Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements for our informants‘
life and for the city _________________________________ 60-66
4.6 The relationship between Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements__67-77
4.7 Future Assumptions about Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements_77-78

5. Analysis and Discussion ________________________________ 79-99

5.1 Globalization ___________________________________ 79-81
5.2 Political History of Turkey ________________________ 82-84
5.3 Politics of Street Art and Ads ______________________ 84-86
5.4 Youth Culture __________________________________ 86-89
5.5 Art Discussion __________________________________ 89-92
5.6 Ways of Legitimization ___________________________ 92-94
5.7 Public Space ____________________________________ 94-99

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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

6. Conclusion ___________________________________________ 99

6.1 Main Findings __________________________________ 99-102
6.2 Concluding Reflections ___________________________ 102-105
6.3 Further Research Needs __________________________ 105-106

7. References ___________________________________________ 107-113

Appendix A

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Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements

I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background, Aims and Objectives

Our decision to study the relationship for both between street art and
advertisements has started four years ago. In 2006, when we were sociology
sophomores at Boğaziçi University in Turkey, we arranged our internships for
summer-term. İrem worked as an intern in an international advertising agency; and
Melike in a local newspaper agency. During our internships, we gained an ability to
criticize the power of communication strategies over people. Following the
advertising agency and media experiences, we have learned the back stage of the
representations of brands; political movements; and social actions. The interaction
and communication with society are backbones of these different representations. In
reference to this key purpose, we started to question the complex messages of the
advertisements and the already defined presentations of social codes by the media. On
the basis of the popular media of this modern society, we looked for different ways of
communication that reflect society and reveal the representations of the space diffused
into the everyday life.
In 2007, we attended to a summer school program called ―Culture, Conflict
and Concord in Europe‖ in the Netherlands to develop our understanding of the
multiplicity of cultural signs. In that summer, we began to develop our street art
collection during our trips in Europe. By focusing on the pieces of life on the streets,
we noticed that cultural differences are present in visual presentations. We collected
these street ornaments as alternative forms of inhabitants‘ self-expressions.
In 2009, we had a chance to analyze, in a detailed way, street art and its
relationship with society, specifically in the Skane Region, in Sweden. We discovered
the cultural elements of 3 different cities (Helsingborg, Lund and Malmö) and
Sweden are reflected on the street art examples. In addition to our internship
experience, in our specialization course ―Media, Culture and Identity‖, we chose to
analyze the effects of outdoor advertisements and political posters in Istanbul on the
citizens through personal narratives. We enriched our literature-based knowledge with
the citizens‘ subjective point of views. Also, from our own-experiences, we realized
that we are heavily influenced by commercial messages. We prefer to buy specific
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