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Hacking the Highways
cindy writes "LA artist Richard Ankrom got fed up with the terrible signage on the Harbor Freeway. Rather than wait for CalTrans to do something about it, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He carefully made additional signage and added it to an existing freeway sign. The results were so good that no one, including CalTrans, noticed for months! The LA Times has an article including some of the video shot by the artist to document his "crime.""
http://web.mit.edu/museum/fun/smoots.html
Perhaps it is the "Smoot"-ing of the Harvard Bridge you refer to? It's only off by 2 letters...
And yes, the local police do use the marks as references when writing accident reports.
You ought to read "If at all Possible, Involve a Cow." -- it's about college pranks, and has nice sections on both MIT and Caltech. A nice afternoon's diversion, at least... motivation for one's own college prank career at the worst.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
It's a hell of a good joke, some fine craftsmanship, and a poke at authority. Perhaps that's enough to call it art.
That's what the 4 at the beginning of the name means. I.E. Interstate 65 goes through Indianapolis, I 465 goes around Indianapolis in a big circle. They don't always have to form a complete loop, but the 4 means 'by-pass'.
What?
If you live in the US, check the back of your nearest highway signs and see if you find any interesting stickers. In some parts of the US, highway signs (and even off-highway signs, such as those found on US routes) contain tactical markings. These markings serve to direct military personnel in the event of martial law.
Most people will be surprised to look at the back of directional signage. I would appreciate any insight from various state DOT officers, if any are reading.
For reference, see http://www.tackamarks.freeservers.com
http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/02-16-98/chicago_cove r2.html m l m l
http://www.artscope.net/VAREVIEWS/StampArt0201.ht
http://www.newcitychicago.com/chicago2/1102.html
http://hotwired.lycos.com/gallery/96/33/jpeg.f.ht
http://www.badpressbooks.com/mhdl.html
I typed up a description of what happened in the video for the benefit of visually impaired slashdotters. Here it goes:
For the first seventeen seconds, the disembodied head of Richard Ankrom floats mysteriously in front of his road sign as it talks about his project in a spooky, ominous voice.
In the next scene (you can hear the music change), you see him carefully examining a post with the INTERSTATE 5 symbol. The camera changes to a close up so you can see him comparing the blue of the shield a a color wheel he holds againts the sign.
Another scene change. Now Rick is on a bridge, looking down along the road sign attached to its side. He takes out his ruler... suddenly a big ruler fades, phantom-like, into the middle of the screen! The background fades into Rick's pepective, looking down at the road below as the cars drive underneath him--yet the ruler... remains! It moves further away, then closer, and starts to slide to the right as the background switches to the original view of the scene. Rick disappears as he bends behind the sign...
...and now a white-gloved hand rubbing a cloth over the pencil-outlined letters "RS"... the camera zooms out... "ERS"... "TERST"... now the camera is so far away that you can no longer recognize the letters. All you see in that same mysterious hand--now attached to an arm--rubbing what looks like dirt on a white surface. Wait... now you can see an outline! Its an interstate shield!
As the significance of this realization grips us, the rubbing hand fades away to a shadow... and then two shadows... and then none.
The camera has now pulled back to the point where we can catch a glimmer of Rick's chest--apparantly he is standing by his drawing. He walks to the side, and starts to roll it up--revealing a white shield lying underneath it!
The camera zooms... we are just able to make out the word "interstate" as the image changes.
We can now see the letters "ERST", only now in thicker pencil. Some sort of pale coloring lies ever the E... wait! That coloring is actually a sheet, which Rick is now using to cover "RST". You can only see his hand as it sets it down. His thumb rubs the top of the sheet, and then his fingers do the rest. The world becomes fuzzy...
We see the letters "RST"--the "E" presumably being covered by his hand. A ruler lies underneath the letters, oriented such that the numbers read upside-down to us. He traces along the ruler with a sharp object as hand and ruler and object all fade into oblivion, leaving only the letters. His hand mysteriously fades in and out at different positions and angles, cutting away at the outlines of different letters. A piece of his forehead pops into the scene, and then...
We see him peeling off the pale covering--yet pieces of it now remain where the letter outlines had been traced.
Now the angle shifts. We are now looking down at the word "INTERSTATE" from the right. He is applying some sort of pale tan tape to the top of the words. These hands start to fade away as another pair of hands fades in, applying tape to the left side. (The arms remain hidden.)
The image now dissolves into a completely new scene. We look down at both of his arms and hands donned in white gloves as one hang scoups green paint out of a can being held by the second. A color table lies sprawling open on the wooden table beneath.
The camera zooms out a little as his right hand stirrs the paint.
The hands fade away... now we see him (even a portion oh his head!) carefully comparing a rectangle he his holding in his hand to the aforemetioned color table.
Dissolution steals this image and replaces it with another. We are now outdoors. We can see Rick frow the abdomin up, facing us, and spraying red paint over our eyes. As the image is covered with this foggy red, the image transitions to a more solid red, with the clear white words "Pantone Color 199-200" at the bottom.
The red disappears as quickly (yet as gradually) as it appeared. We now see Rick spraying red the top of the interstate shield as it lies up-side down against some sort of rectangular prop covered in cloth.
The spray-paint disappears and the red paint on the sign becomes... green? Ah, no, it is now being covered with a green sheet as Rick sprays the top of the sign blue.
The red words "Pantone Color 293" fade onto the bottom, ominously, and then vanish as mysteriously as they had appeared.
A fast fade... now we see him spraying green onto some sort of table lying not far off the tiled ground... and green slowly blends into the scene along with the white words "Pantone Color 340-341" until both dominate... but once they do, the letters fade and a hand moves into our vision.
The hand peels away... an R! Realization dawns upon us as the angle changes to show him peeling off the letter to its right.
The scene changes again. Now we shee the shield standing upright, in its glorious red, white, and blue, as his hands, reaching from the top of our vision, cut away an "E" and completing the white word "INTERSTATE" at the top of the sign. He then peels off the last of the border lying at the top on the sign.
His body now fades into the right of the screen, starting to peel... something from the middle of the sign. The camera zooms into his hands... both hands are now peeling away at...
The bottom of a 5 appears in our vision, filled with several strange circles. His hand reaches from the bottom of our vision, grabs, and removes one of the circles.
Our vision grows blurry... now we see the bottom of a drill, as the hand repeatedly squezes the handle.
Quick fade.. we see some sort of nozzle being pressed against a small disc held by three of his fingers. We zoom in and watch as the nozzle squirts glue which Rick traces into a circle. This being done, the nozzle is pulled away...the scene changes...
...and we watch as the same hand now PUTS BACK the circle it had earlier removed from the 5!
Dramatic music and scene change. We now see Rick from a birds-eye view as he walks along a sidewalk next to a highway... he gets smaller as the camara soars higher. He approaches a hanging overhead road sign.
Our vision quickly flicks to a new scene, where we now see him much closer, almost completely obscured by greenery as he lays a ladder againts a large, metal pole.
The scene again changes abruptly, now showing us pole and ladder from a side view. We zoom into the ladder...
And switch back whence we came. Now Rick is climbing up his ladder....
Ane now we are like an eyeball floating in space, peering at Rick from a moderate distance as he makes it to the top of the ladder. We see him toss some white object (his towel?) onto a porch under the sign.
For a single instant, our vision changos, showing him leaning down and doing something next to the left side of the sign. Less than a second later we now see him climbing a stepladdep as he carries the word "NORTH" in white on a green background. It looks as if a piece of the sign was missing (or is it just a board lying against the sign?)...
...before we can ponder this thought for too long, the angle switches again. Now we see him from above and to the side as he mounts the right side of "NORTH" to the road sign. (It was a board, by-the-way.)
The scene has changed again. Now we see him kneeling on the "porch" under the sign on the right side... it looks as if he is prying or pulling a blue shield with a 5 on it out of a black bag.
The camera again flicks back, now showing Rick as he carries his shield over to the left side. We hear voices.
Now we are closer to him and see him lifting the shield against the sign... now we are above him and watch as he uses his electric screwdriver to mount it into place.
We watch from behind as he now removes the wooden board, first on the ladder, then on the porch (a tricky task, seeing as NORTH and 5 were both mounted over it for some reason). The 5 droops to the side... the scene changes and now we watch him fixing it.
The image becomes blurry and turbulent. Red words appear in two lines along the bottom of the screen: "Camera 3: Mark Concha" and "Driver/Grip: Markus Hays"
We see, vaguely (since our vision is shaking around) a man on a platform on a metal pole... another man breifly enters our vision.
Our vision stops jolting as terribly, but is now a touch unfocused. It is now directed directly at the road sign, and zooms in to the man as he walks across the porch.
Everything becomes much clearer and the words at the bottom disappear. We watch a little above and from a moderate distance (just far enough away to see the entire hanging road sign) as Rick takes down his ladder and carries it back to the right side of the sign. As he is about 1/2 of the way across the scene changes to show him climbing back down the ladder and to the ground.
Fade to black.
Snarkiness is inversely proportional to wisdom because it emphasizes feeling right rather than being right.
Tracey Emin beat you both to it
see what Rolf says
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Where on earth do you think the IRA get most of their funding?
Where do you think Al Qaeda got their funding before the Russians left Afghanistan?
Where do the guerillas in Nicaragua get their funding?
And so on...
Deleted
Check this map to see our really wacked beltline. Notice the small "triangle" of freeway at the left side of the city between Raleigh and Cary. The uppor portion is the Wade Ave. Extension, which lets people going between north Raleigh and I-40 make the transition without going to the southwest corner of the beltline.
:) If you are on the southern portion of the beltline going west, you have the advantage of avoiding the clover-leaf design, but you still have a one-lane switch, or you find yourself headed north on I-40 until you reach the Wade Ave. Extension, where you head back west.
Now, if you look at the interchange marker right above the words "Piney Points" and to the left of "Caraleigh", you will see where our beltline meets itself at a 90 degree angle. At this point, if you are going southwest on the beltline you literally have to take a right hand turn onto a one-lane clover-leaf to get back onto the interstate. If you don't, you find yourself passing through Apex
I've been here almost 2 years, and it took me a good 3 months to get used to that.
What is your Slash Rating?
Australia - been done, and worse.
In a cosy deal with toll road operators, the traffic dept, sabotaged traffic flow, to 'encourage' people to pay tolls, created off highway parking in one of the lanes, converted one way to both ways in the middle of the city.
Planners are now being sued by the toll operators, for trying to undo the damage. Legal and planned traffic mayhem.
I'll tack this on: Guide to understanding Interstate numbering
US Interstate numbers are 2 or 3 digits long.
Each digit has a specific meaning.
The third digit (ones) denotes direction. Even numbered interstates, (Example: 90, 86, etc) run east-west. Odd numbered interstates (Example: 95, 87) run north-south.
The second digit (tens) denotes where in the country it is located. Interstates are numbered South-North, and West-East. This being said, I-90 and I-87 run through NY. I-5 and I-10 run through California.
The first digit (hundreds) is a special extension for cities. Even digits are "bypass", and odd digits are "to". Examples: In Rochester, NY, I-390 runs from I-90 to the city, and I-490 runs around the city. In Buffalo, I-190 runs into the city, and 290 runs past the city.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Two-digit interstate numbers ending in zero (theoretically) traverse the country from east coast to west coast, and those ending in five (theoretically) traverse the country from the northern border to the southern border. They don't all make it the whole way, but that was the original intent. The tens digit increases from west to east and south to north.
So, I-5 runs up the West Coast and I-95 runs up the East coast. I-10 runs along the southern border and I-90 runs along the northern border. Give or take...