Window Shopping: Citywide Storefronts

(2002)

The Citywide Storefront series took place on the sidewalks of Chicago in the early part of the millennium. The two storefronts featured here, .0002 and .0003: The Spirit of the Season, offered passersby the opportunity to disrupt the flow of commerce.

Installed during the busy winter holidays, .0003:  The Spirit of the Season, invites consumers to create their own version of a holiday window. Seated behind the red curtain in window number three, the consumer follows an easy-to-use interactive software program to create their custom message. First, a background is chosen from a selection of picturesque winter landscapes from the famous Hudson River School of Painting. This artistic movement was significant in its attempt to preserve the last vestiges of nature through pictorial reprsenation from the onslaught of encroaching mass industrialization. Next, the consumer exercises their marketing skills. By modifying a holiday jingle from a list of over 100 popular advertising tag lines, the consumer is able to imbue it with their own new meaning. The result is projected into the center storefront window. In addition, a live video feed from the street enables the consumer and other viewing pedestrians to become part of the new image.

.0002 intervenes in the doldrums of everyday consumption; riding mass public transit, buying bulk provisions at Walmart, filling up the gas tank at Exxon, buying the updated “Microsoft for Dummies” at the new Barnes & Noble. Using a live video feed from the street, willing pedestrians can insert themselves into a shopping narrative and join the lone consumer as she traverses the corporatized landscape in 30-second spots.

Images from “.0003 Spirit of the Season”