Creative Vandalism

Years ago I noticed someone added tongue depressors with googly eyes glued to them to the landscaping at a local shopping center, making it look like the plants had eye stalks. I know I took a picture of them at the time, but I searched my computer back when this thread was new and couldn’t find it. The eyes stayed there for a long time, but alas they are gone now.

I love creative vandalism well done:

Those are two images I took recently in Berlin. The sign in the second one reads “This is not a building site, this is a work of art.”

I really want some of those Voice Activated stickers.

Since I’m at work the company firewall is blocking your images, so I may possibly be talking about something you already posted. But when I was in Berlin in 2006 I saw a graffito that read “pull the plug” in big letters, with an arrow pointing down at a river or canal or whatever body of water it was. I though that was rather amusing.

Yeah, Berliners can get very funny and sarcastic in public places. I remember a famous graffito on the Western side of the Wall reading “Wer hier durchkommt kriegt ne Mark”, “Who passes through here gets a mark”.

ETA: the whole inner city Berlin Wall was an excellent example of creative vandalism, there was hardly a cubic centimeter not covered in graffiti, sometimes fantastic displays of art. It was the only place where West Berlin’s authorities didn’t care at all about public graffiti.

The wall was not exactly on the border, to avoid any territorial disputes the German Democratic Republic built the wall at least one meter into its own territory. There was a white line drawn on the floor where the border was, you could cross it and were technically on GDR territory*. Therefore, West Berlin’s police did not have any authority or standing wrt graffiti on that surface.
Today they are proud of the graffiti that have survived and call them East Side Gallery. Some graffiti were made after the fall of the wall.
* That was not a problem: the border guards were on the other side of the wall and left you in peace. You could come back anytime.
** Nitpick: square centimeter. :wink: The graffiti are still two dimensional.

Oh my god, what a brain fart. I’m an engineer, of all trades :man_facepalming: :laughing:.

This isn’t a sign, but I think it fits the category. When I worked as a factory janitor, we staged a little raid. Another janitor said her customers with offices out in the factory were short on wastebaskets, and Purchasing wouldn’t buy them new ones. So, we went to Purchasing after they had gone home, and we swiped a bunch of their wastebaskets.

Speaking of tongue depressors made me think of something I recently witnessed that could be in the “creative vandalism” category, or maybe in the “creative awesomeness” category:

I had to drive south for a work trip and went the night before (I spent a few nights). It was dark and I came around a corner on the highway and saw all these pairs of eyes not far off the road. I couldn’t think of what animals it could be. I drove a bit further and again saw all the pairs of eyes. What the heck? A few more miles and again, many sets of eyes. This time I pulled over where my headlights were still shining on them. I couldn’t make out what animals they were, but the oddly were not moving. I got out of my car, grabbed a flashlight and walked towards them. None of them moved! I got close enough to find out it was two tongue depressors glued together in a T shape with one stuck in the ground. On the crossbar, two little reflectors were affixed.

I saw many more installations of these eyes over the next 30 miles till I got to the town I was traveling to. I still laugh thinking about that drive.

I forgot about this one.
I took this in Florence, in 2007 (peak of the iPod era).

So apparently “eyebombing” is a thing. In the case I saw the person likely stuck the eyes to tongue depressors because they won’t stick to the plants themselves.