Forma

City Strapline Industries

City Strapline Industries is an installation combining processes of ‘social interference’ and media making that explores the phenomenon of the branding of cities as a strategy, not only of marketing, but also of regeneration.The exhibition will also feature other recent video works by the artist, including Cultural Quarter, 2003 (multiple–prize at the Echigo–Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan, August 2003).

By placing idiosyncratic and unsanctioned culture alongside efforts to market a location strategically, the works highlight the complexities and hierarchies involved. Straplines like ‘Sheffield – City on the Move’, ‘Bedfordshire – A Progressive County’ and ‘Bradford’s bouncing back’ serve as testaments to the universality of city marketing over recent decades, but also to the continuing inertia of social and economic realities that bears upon these aspirational, optimistic statements.


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City Strapline Industries

Mike Stubbs
2004

City Strapline Industries is an installation combining processes of ‘social interference’ and media making that explores the phenomenon of the branding of cities as a strategy, not only of marketing, but also of regeneration.The exhibition will also feature other recent video works by the artist, including Cultural Quarter, 2003 (multiple–prize at the Echigo–Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan, August 2003).

By placing idiosyncratic and unsanctioned culture alongside efforts to market a location strategically, the works highlight the complexities and hierarchies involved. Straplines like ‘Sheffield – City on the Move’, ‘Bedfordshire – A Progressive County’ and ‘Bradford’s bouncing back’ serve as testaments to the universality of city marketing over recent decades, but also to the continuing inertia of social and economic realities that bears upon these aspirational, optimistic statements.

  • Presented

    BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK
    Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK

  • Credits

    City Strapline Industries was created by Mike Stubbs in 2004. Produced by Forma. Supported by NewcastleGateshead Initiative, New Media Scotland and the University of Dundee.

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Installation view, Mike Stubbs, City Strapline Industries, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2004. Photo: Sarah Bouttell

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Installation view, Mike Stubbs, City Strapline Industries, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2004. Photo: Sarah Bouttell

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Mike Stubbs is an artist based in Liverpool. His work encompasses film, video, mixed media installation and performance. Stubbs is also the Director/CEO of FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, a leading organization for the commissioning and presentation of film, video and new media art forms. As a co-founder of ROOT, Burning Bush Bush and the Abandon Normal Devices festivals, a project of FACT and Cornerhouse, Manchester, Stubbs has commissioned and produced over 350 exhibitions, interactive, site specific, performative, sound and moving-image based exhibition programmes and artworks.

Background image: Installation view, Mike Stubbs, City Strapline Industries, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2004. Photo: Sarah Bouttell