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Posts Tagged ‘Flooded’

The North Face flooded Wikipedia with product images to manipulate Google ranking

05 Jun

Last week, The North Face and ad agency Leo Burnett Tailor Made published a video detailing the company’s exploitation of Wikipedia as part of an ad campaign. The exploitation, according to the company’s video, involved swapping Wikipedia images of various destinations with new images that prominently featured The North Face gear.

The oddly boastful video puts forth the following question: How can a brand be the first on Google without paying anything for it? The rest of the video details how The North Face pulled off its stunt, including sending photographers to capture original images of people using the company’s gear in ‘adventurous’ locations.

The Wikipedia pages for these high-tourism destinations, the video notes, often appear at the top of the first Google search results page; the first images found on these pages are often at or near the top position on Google Image Search, as well.

As part of its manipulation, The North Face swapped the first images in these Wikipedia pages with its own original photos of the destinations — ones that prominently featured apparel, backpacks, and other products.

In pulling this stunt, the video brags that The North Face was able to manipulate Google Image Search into ranking its promotional content near the top of its results for these destinations.

A screenshot of the Guarita State Park Wikipedia page before North Face added its own photos.

The companies seemingly acknowledged the unacceptable nature of the activity to AdAge, reportedly stating the ‘biggest obstacle’ for the ad campaign was replacing the images ‘without attracting the attention of Wikipedia moderators.’ As well, the video at one point states that The North Face was ‘collaborating’ with Wikipedia in this effort, something Wikimedia Foundation addressed in a blog post.

A screenshot of the Guarita State Park Wikipedia page after North Face added its own photos.

The non-profit organization called the ad campaign an unethical manipulation of Wikipedia, saying, ‘They have risked your [the public’s] trust in our mission for a short-lived marketing stunt.’

‘Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation did not collaborate on this stunt, as The North Face falsely claims,’ the non-profit states in its blog, comparing the ad campaign’s image manipulation to ‘defacing public property.’ As expected, Wikipedia proceeded to remove some of The North Face’s images from articles and to crop its logo out of other images.

Wikimedia Foundation said:

When The North Face exploits the trust you have in Wikipedia to sell you more clothes, you should be angry. Adding content that is solely for commercial promotion goes directly against the policies, purpose and mission of Wikipedia to provide neutral, fact-based knowledge to the world.

For its part, The North Face published a lackluster apology on Twitter, stating:


Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Dark Water: Take a Boat Ride Through a Flooded Museum

15 Sep

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

boat ride art installation 1

In order to take in the new, dimly lit installation at Palais de Tokyo by artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, you’ll have to pilot a small boat through dark waters inside the flooded museum. Taking its name from the annual flooding event that sees the water levels in Venice rise so high that walkways disappear, the ACQUAALTA exhibition envisions the concrete interiors of the Palais as they would be if the forces of nature were similarly unleashed upon Paris.

boat ride art installation 4

boat ride art installation 6

Visitors sit or stand within their rowboats, using oars to paddle themselves around the nearly pitch-black space and disembarking to explore jagged foam landscapes.The hallucinatory voyage is reminiscent of souls crossing over to the underworld via the River Styx, with the ferryman Charon to guide them.

boat ride art installation 2

boat ride art installation 3

As they take in the subtle figurative silhouettes projected onto the black walls, the guests themselves become part of the exhibition, like actors in a play. As they navigate the waters, they are filmed, their movements projected onto one of the walls. The foam ‘island’ is a place of refuge, allowing deeper immersion into the work without fear of drifting.

boat ride art installation 5

boat ride art installation 7

Boursier-Mougenot believes that creating an atmosphere is integral to art, so that the work is not just disconnected imagery hanging on a wall, but rather an interactive experience that envelops onlookers and makes them active participants. The hope is that as a viewer, you temporarily forget who you are, falling headfirst into a dreamworld via an artificially constructed series of hypnotic images, movements and sounds.

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[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Flooded Sky: ‘Northern Lights’ Effect Fills Air with Blue Waves

11 Mar

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

StudioRoosegaarde_Waterlicht_HR2

Floating above an 18,000-square-foot area of Dutch land that would be underwater were it not for defensive measures, the ethereal effect hovers between simulated aerial floodwater and imitation aurora borealis.

waterlicht surreal sky led

A temporary work in Westervoort, this latest pieced dubbed ‘Waterlicht’ by Daan Roosegaarde was created using LED projectors located on surrounding dykes, highlighting the essential role of flood prevention technology in keeping so much of the Netherlands dry. As the beams cross in the air, moved slowly up and down by motors, the effect seen in these images is created.

waterlicht northern lights effect

Visitors walking along those adjacent barriers perceive the illumination like an eerily lit surface of water below – those passing below the plane of light see something akin to the Northern Lights, normally a natural atmospheric effect reserved for rare and special conditions. “we create a virtual flood. Walking on the dike the light lines are perceived as high water, once in the flood channel you find yourself in an underwater world.”

waterlicht projected at night

The work was commissioned by the Dutch water board to keep up awareness about this vital element of the country’s infrastructure. “In Waterlicht people experience what the Netherlands would look like without its dykes. Awareness is crucial, because the Dutch (water)artworks need every day maintenance and our national water awareness is the foundation of that maintenance.”

waterlicht against the sky

No stranger to working with nighttime illumination, Roosegaarde is famous for other works including a night-lit bicycle path in the style of Van Gogh as well as schemes for glow-in-the-dark highway infrastructure.

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