John Fekner Messages to the Public: We Are the Target of the Singles Market

Multimedia artist John Fekner (b. 1950, New York City) composed a 30-second computer animated “visual rap” titled We Are the Target of the Singles Market. The message is recited by a hypothetical Everyman mesmerized by consumerism.

He designed We Are the Target of the Singles Market to remind the Times Square public that the superficial personal enhancement marketed by advertisers both in the immediate vicinity and in every other part of the environment, poses a threat to individuality.

Fekner has worked extensively with social commentary themes. Since 1977, he has painted over 300 large stencils in the New York area—working with young people to spray paint images, such as deer leaping over toxic waste barrels and the question “R U A VIDIOT?”, on highways, abandoned buildings, and automobiles. In 1985, he composed, arranged and produced a full-length record, Idioblast, on Vinyl Gridlock records with his fellow stencilers. Fekner describes the songs, ranging in style from dance/rap to political/folk, as an extension of his outdoor work.

Messages to the Public formed a key part of the Public Art Fund’s long-term commitment to media-based artworks. Running from 1982 to 1990, the show featured a series of artists’ projects created specifically for the Spectacolor board at Times Square.

As Russell Miller from Ohio newspaper The Toledo Blade explained in his article on February 19, 1984, “every month, a different artist presents a 30-second animation on the Spectacolor light board—an 800-square-foot array of 8,000 red, white, blue, and green 60-watt bulbs that dominates the Times Square vista. The spot is repeated more than 50 times a day for two weeks, wedged into a 20-minute loop of computer-animated commercials.

“Jane Dickson, a painter, was working for Spectacolor, Inc. as an ad designer and computer programmer when, three and a half years ago, she first thought to use the light board to display noncommercial art.

“‘I picked that title,’ she said of Messages to the Public, ‘because I thought the propaganda potential from this project was terrific.’ The board, she noted, was regularly used for ‘commercial propaganda.’

“Dickson sought help from the Public Art Fund, an organization based here and dedicated to taking art out of the galleries and placing it in the city’s streets and parks.”

Project Director of the Public Art Fund Jessica Cusick explained, “We’re trying to do art that’s timely, has a message, is visually potent and is trying to deal with the fine line dividing fine art and commercial art.”