‘Catlanta’ Uses Social Media To Spur Art Hunt

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‘Catlanta’ Uses Social Media To Spur Art Hunt

April 11th, 2011 ipadoholic Leave a comment Go to comments

Atlanta (CNN) — The track starts as shortly as word hits the internet. Then they’re off, prowling the city landscape, smartphones in hand, in hunting of the desired kitties by the lane artist well known as Catlanta.

“They” are your garden-variety blend of city dwellers in Atlanta, from students and artists to young professionals and housewives. For them, it’s about the disturb of the chase. Plus, the bestow is type of as well lovable to resist: a small, lead bullion magnet in the figure of a cat, emblazoned with a heart and the artist’s moniker.

Take-home art is nothing new, and lane artists have created a story of using amicable media to publicize themselves. But Catlanta appears to be a special breed. He’s using a multiple of Flickr , Twitter and Facebook to rivet the people of Atlanta in a scavenger track for his work.

And fans admire it. Just inquire Zachary Long, a marriage photographer who follows Catlanta on Flickr and Twitter. Like other fans, Long monitors his feeds for headlines of the next “kitten drop,” when Catlanta hits not similar neighborhoods with a receptacle bag of his eponymous creations.

Long’s golden chance came in March, when Catlanta done a tumble in downtown Atlanta, affixing the kitties to mailboxes, gates and lampposts.

As he always does, Catlanta had snapped photos of the kitties on his fabrication BlackBerry and uploaded them to Flickr, captioned with clues to their locations, commencing the hunt.

Long right away established a parking scale outward his unit and rushed to affirm the pool stranded to it. He showed it to his mother, who was on vacation from out of town, and she was now enamored, he says. The span set off at once in hunting of other for her.

They gathering around for an hour, subsequent to the detailed clues on Long’s iPhone, to no avail. But they had fun trying, he said.

“For me, the allure is the amicable aspect and that it’s interactive. You do not only perspective the work in a gallery; you have to obviously go outward and try to find the artwork,” Long said. “It’s type of similar to a game. we similar to the thought of the scavenger hunt, going out there to beat others before they find it. It’s only fun.”

That’s what Catlanta likes to hear. It’s a diversion for him as well. When he’s not working at a doggy day care, he spends many of his time on his living room floor, formulating kitties and baiting fans on with Flickr images of the functions in progress.

“I similar to that’s it arrange of available lane art, and people who wouldn’t routinely be seeking at that type of things are receiving the time to look at it and participate,” the gaunt 23-year-old mentioned recently, as CNN.com accompanied him on a tumble on Georgia Tech’s campus in downtown Atlanta.

As Catlanta’s air blower bottom has grown — 923 Facebook fans and counting — people are snatching up the kitties faster and faster, infrequently inside of an hour of going up online. Fans post fervent cinema of themselves and the kitties on Catlanta’s Flickr, and he’s been written up in local media.

Despite his flourishing popularity, the new college of music art grad resists attempts to affix a “deeper meaning” to the game. His responses to a reporter’s meddling questions are punctuated with long pauses and “I do not know’s.”

“Having that appearance with total strangers, it only creates it fun, and that’s unequivocally all that it comes down to. Just having fun.”

Artists around the world emanate work is to open to take home, even in the murky area of lane art, where contentious misfits similar to Catlanta, who proposed out as a wall scrawl writer, run beneath an insincere identity to prevent arrest. After all, a few welcome what they do, whilst others, inclusive law enforcement, ponder it crook destruction of property.

The order is segment of what encouraged Catlanta to end scrawling kitties on deserted buildings and Dumpsters and emanate magnets.

“I do not unequivocally wish to be well known for spray-painting things because a lot of people do not unequivocally similar to that. we went to art school for college of music art so I’m not out to do mist paint or graffiti,” mentioned says.

Street art is no longer solely tangible by illegal wall scrawl and tags on open property.

Alternative forms of city adornments cocktail up around the world daily, a few the brainchild of Kickstarter projects. Their locale are chronicled on countless blogs and interactive maps. Google and Red Bull not long ago teamed up to emanate Street Art View , a user-driven chart of lane art around the world, in what a few appreciate as an inauspicious pointer of its flourishing mainstream appeal.

The advent of Web services such as Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo has enabled lane artists to attain audiences over the communities where their work is segment of the landscape. It moreover lets them link up with fans and other artists without having to give up their identity, says RJ Rushmore, who runs Vandalog , a blog that showcases lane art worldwide.

“If you’re carrying out lane art, chances are you do not have a lot of resources. So if you can publicize yourself low or for free, that’s a outrageous value since march everybody has internet access now,” he says.

Take, for example, Bumblebee , a wall scrawl bard and lane artist in Downey, California. He began sauce up deserted journal stands and phone booths as bee-themed dioramas in 2008. Last year, he was declared one of the 50 most appropriate lane artists by “Complex Magazine.”

“Social media is the key to getting your name out there,” says Bumblebee, a 20-something who keeps his identity fiercely guarded. “It has altered the entire concept of lane art. You can do one square and turn flattering popular.”

He acknowledges the critique of a few who perspective the use of amicable media to share your work as “cheating,” but says there’s more to it.

“It unquestionably changes the way the diversion is played, the recognition game, because it’s not about how many pieces you do anymore. It’s about the high quality of your piece. But with that, you can do something unequivocally thought-provoking that says something rsther than than only putting up your name on a wall.”

Other criticisms affect to the “flattening effect” amicable media has on once-distinct informal styles of wall scrawl or tagging.

“Now that you have all these blogs and art swelling by assorted forms of amicable media, you unquestionably beginning to see things that are obviously a derivative of someone or something else,” says Keith Plocek, a Web editor for LA Weekly who moreover chronicles lane art in his blog, dirtythirdstreets.com . “But you could say it’s type of inevitable in the internet age.”

The level of appearance and rendezvous on the local level could be what creates Catlanta special, says Reynolds, the blogger who runs Vandalog.

“When lane art is done is to right reason, it’s about giving back to the community,” he says. “I would dispute that’s what it seems similar to Catlanta is carrying out it for.”

Catlanta’s drops began in January when an scarcely bad winter charge strike Atlanta, call him to find an indoor activity. He borrowed motivation for Catlanta’s pattern from a T-shirt he hereditary upon his grandmother’s death.

“I regard without amicable media it wouldn’t have all happened so quickly,” he said.

In add-on to the magnets, that do not enable for ample variety, he moreover drops a box of considerable card cutout kitties. On the day CNN.com followed him, he placed the box in a stairwell nearby Georgia Tech’s campus before on foot to the club opposite the lane to upload the images.

Thirty mins later, as he walked back to his car, a collegiate-looking type nearly knocked in to him as he ran toward the pool box.

“We already found them,” a few other young variety yelled from opposite the street. One of them, a girl, lovingly cradled the box.

Catlanta didn’t jump over a beat as he walked to his car, which, by the way, has a Catlanta magnet merged to the dashboard.

“It’s so silly,” he muttered beneath his breath once the fervent students were out of sight. “What unequivocally surprises me is when they take the box.”