Free unlimited edition poster by graphic artist Stuffit© Stuffit
Long before politicians learned to spin stories to the mass media and persuasion became subliminal, there were straightforward ways of getting people to do what was required of them.
In the 1840s, in response to a familiar sounding economic crisis, an educational pamphlet titled Hints to Workmen was published, premised on the “gullibility” of the working classes.
More than 160 years later, governments here and in the US are using behavioural economics to influence behaviour, a science based on the generally irrational way humans make decisions.
Both models of paternalistic influence come under attack in a new show at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, in which artists, rather than policy makers, are invited to educate the public on how best to live.
A good example is pictured above. Graphic artist Stuffit offers all visitors to the show an unlimited edition free poster proposing a universal mortgage strike. Keetra Dean Dixon, meanwhile, trades on irony by fixing steel plaques on bank cash machines with the words: Trust Me.
Some of the work in the exhibition is historic. There are bank advertisements from the time of another major recession, the 1930s, including a surreal offer of mortgages from the Bank of the Church of England.
Also represented are the San Francisco Diggers, who founded their own currency in the 1960s, and King Mob, a London-based group making protest posters in the late 60s and early 70s.
A total of 15 artists are included in this timely group show. Whether you take their hints or not is up to you.
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