We are surrounded by countless messages every day of our lives. Increasingly the mainstream marketing machines are taking on aspirational language. Ever more invasive ways are found to insert these phrases into our consciousness, from public TV screens, billboards and product promotions to unwanted texts, spam e-mails and cold calls using pre-recorded messages.

A surprisingly low-tech phenomenon we are seeing more of is a modern twist on the Victorian sandwich board man; the ‘placard person’. Exploiting the right to roam in public spaces carrying something with writing on it, they both infiltrate and contribute to the corporate dominated arena with a low-tech, but effective, form of communication.

Their demeanour is usually that of a minimum wage-slave, acting as a ‘human base for a sign’. They are not interested in engaging on a personal basis. Their messages are bringing people’s attention to something, often with an arrow pointing them in the desired direction or colour coded to tie into a high street brand. They can usually be found slumped against a handy bollard using their human assets to prop up a simple, invitational phrase.

We set out to join in, to bring some alternative influences to the mix and to find out what’s involved in claiming some high street real estate. The proposal was for half a dozen operatives to spend several hours languishing at strategic junctions in a retail centre. Their aim was to blend into the landscape and become unnoticed ‘sign supporters’. The messages would subliminally become part of the ambience of the city, esoteric additions to the data soup swilling around our heads.

Found texts were used that subtly questioned meaning, provoked fun or offered poetic moments. The statements all pre-existed in some form and came from public information announcements, corporate hoardings and religious notices. Some were quotes from artists or snippets taken from books, others featured excerpts from an election campaign or a remembered line from an advert. We gave them a new physical context and dressed them in the aesthetic of the retail environment. The words were deliberately dislocated from their origins and then offered up at face value for the casual observer to inadvertently take away and digest at leisure.

It proved to be interesting trying to find out what regulations and permissions might be required and, after a correspondence with elusive officials, it transpired that anyone is free to hoist their own placard. We found out that some parts of today’s cities which appear to be public space are in fact privately owned and that in their jurisdiction ‘the cultural life of the street’ is very much at the discretion of the proprietor. We could find no special regulations that control placard bearers, although local authorities may have their own by-laws which will vary from place to place. Common sense proved to be the best guide as to what is legally acceptable and it seemed to boil down to avoiding tripping people up or blatantly offending them.

Responses ranged from the oblivious, to funny looks, to occasional positive comments. While the idea was to blend into the urban landscape, it was inevitable that some members of the public wanted to engage. Most were curious as to what it was all about and were happy with a simple explanation. The only hitch was with an official who demanded to know who had given us permission to display the placards. As an unregulated activity it is not possible to obtain permission – although it took a while to establish that we both knew this to be the case – an episode that would have been familiar to our good friend, Joseph K. The other moment of uncertainty was when a conventional placard holder, representing a high street brand, turned up to find we had already occupied his regular pitch.

These initial placards have now been joined by other designs and it is intended that they make appearances on high streets in towns and cities up and down the country. There are unlimited messages that can be conveyed in the corporate vernacular in any busy shopping centre where the contemporary placard bearer can be found.

If you are lucky you may catch one in its natural habitat; if not you will have to make do with the documentation photographs. These spawned another set of questions about how the act of photography affected people’s perception of the intervention (by contaminating the experience) and whether the primary significance was in the physical intervention, or in the record of it.

Research included observing professional placard bearers to pick up some reference points on their modus operandi: find a high profile location close to the venue you are promoting; choose an intersection where there is maximum footfall from several directions; claim a niche where you can lean against something and fade into the background; drift into a Zen-like state or distract yourself with your ‘phone and let the world pass you by.

One of the themes we’ve been developing concerns individual expression in ‘corporatized’ public space. A matter that came into focus was whether the operatives who held our placards sympathised with the messages they conveyed. We sided with authenticity on this point – and volunteers are always required to hold whatever placard they are issued with. However, should you wish to communicate a message of your own choice, in this back to basics manner, you can find a step-by-step guide at www.redhawklogistica.com

Thanks to David Rowan (photography), Mandeep Malhi (Design) and to our placard bearers.