16 ms·

German Artists Say They Put White Flags on Brooklyn Bridge

115 points by UVB-76 12y ago

benihana 12y ago
>The artists stressed that when they removed those flags, they ceremonially folded them, “following the United States flag code,” Mr. Leinkauf said That's really respectful and a nice part of this story. It turns it from an act of vandalism into a true work of art in my opinion.
Crito 12y ago
I'm a little suprised that Mooninites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare) didn't get a mention in the article.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
Interestingly, especially given that any resulting court case will likely hinge on free speech, when I search for Matthias Wermke on Google from the UK, alongside the results I get this message - "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more" With the "Learn More" linking to a page on the recent EU right to be forgotten ruling. This message does not appear for the other artist, Mischa Leinkauf.
- pgeorgi 12y ago
  There are at least two other Matthias Wermkes that I ran into while searching around. Without tracing which pages are filtered it's hard to say who requested it. I get the message no matter which keywords I add to try to isolate one of them.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    True. I wonder if anyone has made a google results diffing tool yet. There must be one out there somewhere already, though whether it would show up on google results is another matter.
    - kybernetyk 12y ago
      I diffed for my name (because I really was curious why I was on the list). Local German IP vs US VPN. The results were the same. In a different order but all items were the same for the first 10 pages. So I guess it's just a "let's slap that footer onto all name related searches so we save a few DB queries".
- DanBC 12y ago
  That text should appear for all names whether there are removed searches or not. In this case Google isn't recognising Mischa Leinkauf as a name.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    The results I am getting from google.co.uk do not support that theory at all. Bob Smith - message saying results removed John Smith - no message Sally Smith - no message James Smith - message saying results removed Claire Smith - no message Deborah Smith - no message Colin Smith - no message Alison Smith - no message
    - yohui 12y ago
      That could just mean Google's algorithm isn't perfect. And Google only needs to ensure that the disclaimer appears often enough so that people won't assume its presence means results were removed. I definite recall it being stated that the disclaimers would be shown for name searches in Europe, not just name searches with results removed.
      - lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Saying it just tries to flag all names, but just doesn't spot "John Smith" or "Alison Smith" as names, while managing ones such as "James Smith" and "Bob Smith", isn't very plausible.
- kybernetyk 12y ago
  I get this (from Germany) for almost any common name combination. And also for my name even though I never requested a removal - nor am I famous enough to be mentioned in other publications. I guess Google just adds this footer whenever someone searches for a name.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    "I guess Google just adds this footer whenever someone searches for a name." As I said, this does not happen for Mischa Leinkauf (it also doesn't happen for the combinations of Matthias Leinkauf, or Mischa Wermke). It also does not happen for John Smith, or Bob Dobbs.
weinzierl 12y ago
"...hoisting two big all-white American flags". That's a funny slip of the pen.
- JadeNB 12y ago
  I can understand that it doesn't seem to be a reasonable description (they are all-white stand-ins for what are usually American flags), but it doesn't seem to be a typo / slip of the pen—or were you making some joke or more subtle commentary that I missed?
  - bpicolo 12y ago
    I believe he's referring to the fact that an all-white flag is just a flag, there's nothing American about it.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      These were actually very clearly, American flags made in all white. The typical pattern was existent in the construction, if not the coloring.
  - UVB-76 12y ago
    They did actually resemble American flags, with the stars and stripes faintly visible. Edit: See this image: http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9622820.ece/binary/original/White-Flag-Brooklyn-Bridge.jpg http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9622820.ece/bin...
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  You did not see the flags closely. They have all of the same 'design' as the regular flag, alternating horizontal stripes, a square in the corner with 50 stars, but the artists used two slightly different colors of while to construct the flag. It made them appear to be bleached white or something.
- anonymouz 12y ago
  Read on. They used two shades of "white" clothes to sew in the patterns.
rememberlenny 12y ago
Im building a service that helps keep track of public art and their artists. This was a piece I followed, because Im based in NYC. Flag incident page: http://www.publicartfound.com/graffitis/bb-white-flag http://www.publicartfound.com/graffitis/bb-white-flag Updated artists page: http://www.publicartfound.com/artists/mischa-leinkauf-matthias-wermke http://www.publicartfound.com/artists/mischa-leinkauf-matthi...
- famousactress 12y ago
  Awesome project!
bane 12y ago
Maybe I'm old, but I don't understand why this is art and why pulling a stupid juvenile prank makes the people who did it "artists". Is art really this dead?
- pessimizer 12y ago
  You're not old, just intolerant of different forms of art; this would have been art 50 years ago, too. It's actually a bit quaint and old fashioned.
- HCIdivision17 12y ago
  I suspect it's just not something you find particularly interesting. Personally, I think other people's reaction will be the fascinating part. I could easily see a segment of the population being incensed at the notion of someone flying a US flag resembling a flag of surrender. (Note: I'm in Dallas, Texas at the moment, so I expect slightly stronger responses.) Art's always legit to somebody, but even if this is just a goofy prank, it could take on a life of its own after, sorta post-factor legitimizing it. At the least, it could be a neat catalyst for a few flame wars.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  You're not old, it's just that nowdays "art" is defined as "anything that you can convince few people to call art", the more shocking and disgusting the better. On the other hand, I think we should have much more "stupid juvenile pranks". Society is grumpy and boring nowdays.
  - bane 12y ago
    If these guys were called "professional pranksters" I'd be fine with it. Good on them, great prank. Lots of laughs. White flags, just like surrendering, haha. There's plenty of good modern art. I don't really think art should necessarily return to classic form. I'm writing this as I listen to some Steve Reich music and I have a Ryan McGinness print right over my computer. But I'm afraid the art world these days is basically optimized around trying to produce output that's purely intended to confuse, shock or outrage. It's like the art world has lost the ability to recognize and evoke any other emotion. It's become so insular and incestuous that so much that's produced in the art world these days has any relevance or meaning at all -- it's almost psychopathic. Except instead it's boring, pretentious and trite. Evoking negative emotions is easy. In the last year I've visited a number of very well known modern art collections. Looking at the unbelievably epic size of the works...just huge canvases filled with random stuff the artists felt like throwing at it, or big squares or lines or whatever, and massive multi-ton sculptures that were basically the result of a masonry 101 class or intro to welding two pieces of scrap iron together class. My only thought the entire time was that I was walking around a building composed of desperate cries for attention, "look at me! look at me!" each piece of screaming at me, but each showed me nothing of any particular note or interest. I stopped and just started laughing when I got to the pile of flame retardant foam that had just been sprayed into a pile and delivered to the museum. Carefully noted and called out as a special work by the curator so I wouldn't confuse it with an actual pile of leftover flame retardant foam from a previous fire or something. Half of the works were indistinguishable from a pile of garbage or a bad renovation project. And then I saw this http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4926/nampaikbuddha.jpg http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4926/nampaikbuddha.jpg and I stopped regretting the time I was wasting instantly. It was beautiful, elegant, evocative, it worked on many many levels. There's not a lot to it. Somebody could probably set it up in 10 or 20 minutes. But it means something -- setting it up in the way it was provided all the context and meaning the work needed. It's interpretive. It's commentary. But it's doing something other than trying to say "look at me look at me! I'm art! I'm art!" It works in and out of the context of an art museum...which is more than a 20'x40' canvas filled with string and cat feces can claim. At another museum, I had the same feelings till I got to a special installation by Ryan McGuinness. It's easy to dismiss McGuinness's work as just a bunch of random clipart printed out on a large format printer. But what was expertly done with the installation was an overview of the process behind his work. And it was really breathtaking. A single piece is the culmination of hundreds or thousands of hours of behind the scenes work, and a real attempt to connect his art with the context it's placed in. And you realize as you walk through the process that there's no other way that he could have really arrived at his pieces except through this excruciatingly detailed and exacting process. Once you see the process, you learn to "see" his work and it's glorious and wonderful and exciting. This sat in stark contrast to the many many other pieces of modern art I've tried to spend time understanding -- even going to entire classes of art appreciation. Where the more I learn about the artist and their process and the work, the less and less impressed I am with it. During another visit, I met a local artist -- Matt Lively. And his thing is to paint bees on unicycles. That's it. They're usually done on small cuts of wood a few inches by a few inches, but sometimes on canvas. He's not trying to produce the next great world changing art movement. He's just making his little bees. And he could care less about what people thought about them. "I don’t have a lot of control over other people’s feelings," Matt describes. "So, I rarely think about [how my art will affect viewers] when creating a show." http://rockettsvillage.com/blog/07/2012/cedar-works-gallery-showcases-art-by-matt-lively#sthash.NJLB9JBG.dpuf http://rockettsvillage.com/blog/07/2012/cedar-works-gallery-... He's doing what he likes to do. It's not high art, but it's whimsical and does evoke an emotional feeling. And it's I think it's awesome. There's room in my view of art for low to high-brow stuff. What I don't have room for in my view is stupid nonsense posing as art. I know 90% of everything is crap. And there's lots of crap art out there. But I'd rather not be exposed to most of that 90% as if it was fantastic stuff I just didn't get. I get it, people desperately want attention and to feel important. Well if you want that, do something worth my attention, do something actually important. So when I say this flag stunt is a stupid juvenile prank, I'm saying it with lots of meaning and understanding of art behind the statement.
volune 12y ago
Extradition in 3, 2, 1...
- pantalaimon 12y ago
  Germany doesn't extradict it's citizen, it just turns a blind eye if they are kidnapped by the CIA.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    I had no idea about this, and was writing off pantalaimon as engaging in hyperbole, so if anyone made the same mistake I did: It turns out that Germany does not in fact extradite its own nationals, except to other EU states. Source: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#GGengl_000P16 http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.ht...
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  I don't know, they kiss a lot of American ass in the article and it is essentially just trespassing. Sounds like they want to make sure they can come back to NYC with no hassle.
  - exDM69 12y ago
    > Sounds like they want to make sure they can come back to NYC with no hassle. Unfortunately, I don't think this will happen. I would not be surprised if these individuals will never be allowed entry to the US again. People have been turned at the border for less. And similar breach of security events in the past have been prosecuted using terrorism laws. I do hope that I am wrong, though.
  - genwin 12y ago
    They're terrorists, because someone in authority thought so, and that's all it takes nowadays. No way will they be allowed in the U.S. except delivered in handcuffs to a long solitary confinement.
driverdan 12y ago
What an overblown event which I suppose makes it a success. The fact that the police force and DA went nuts about it is ridiculous. I hope there are no legal consequences.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
pg_is_a_butt 12y ago
they didn't "put white flags" anywhere... they bleached existing colorful flags.
dasil003 12y ago
The only thing embarrassing about this to the authorities is their reaction. It ought to be apparent to anyone that providing perfect security is impossible, and that pretending we can is akin to a child sticking fingers in their ears and shouting "la-la-la". I think it's already clear that if we catch you doing terrorism you'll never see the light of day again, so "trying to send a strong message" about pranks like this just makes us look weak and vulnerable.
- jobu 12y ago
  I was going to say the same thing, and this quote from one of them made me laugh: "We really didn’t intend to embarrass the police." The police did it to themselves. If they had blown it off as a waste of time and resources to investigate some prank, then they could've saved face and preserved the myth of the current "security theatre".
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - vampirechicken 12y ago
    But the question that will come from the chicken hawks is "If these guys could do it, why couldn't somebody bent on causing real harm?"
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      Screw the chicken hawks. They only have power because we agree to pretend that they do.
      - vampirechicken 12y ago
        Once they get elected, cops have to answer to them and behave in ways to placate them.
- mturmon 12y ago
  The reflex of treating this intervention as some kind of security threat is embarrassing. I read an article at the time musing that the white flags meant something about surrender. Like a child in a cave scaring himself by whispering "boo". The installation, by the way, reminded me of Richard Ankrom's guerrilla modification of a well-known freeway sign near downtown LA (http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html). The artist had a sign fabricated to Caltrans specs, got a haircut and a hard hat, and did the install in broad daylight (on a weekend). It was up for over 8 years -- Caltrans noticed it after a couple of months. Eventually it was replaced by a similar design by actual Caltrans workers.
owenversteeg 12y ago
It's ridiculous that the police are threatening severe consequences. It's a harmless prank.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  It's their job and maybe even their nature to threaten. Would you feel okay if they responded with a meme?
  - cracell 12y ago
    I'd feel much safer if they could laugh it off. Responding they way they did is illogical and just reenforces the idea that many in the American government now see the America people as the enemy.
suprgeek 12y ago
The Artists sure made a statement! The truly wonderful part of this action is that the statement they made was perhaps not the one they intended. New Yorker's sensitivities aside, this beautifully demonstrated how bat-shit crazy the govt. & the media has become over terrorism fears. The NYPD did initially consider this to be an art-project [1]...and had they let it go at that, things would have been much less embarrassing now. So an unlikely pair of Germans (allegedly) deserve kudos for exposing the American scardey-cat responses & massive waste of resources and time that can be brought about by simple (but unusual) things. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/22/us/new-york-brooklyn-bridge-flags/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/22/us/new-york-brooklyn-bridge-fl...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dmix 12y ago
  This quote from the artists summed up the parallel nicely: > “We saw the bridge, which was designed by a German, trained in Berlin, who came to America because it was the place to fulfill his dreams, as the most beautiful expression of a great public space,” Mr. Leinkauf said. “That beauty was what we were trying to capture.” Then by effect they captured the beauty of the modern paranoid state where acts of vandalism spark mass-fear among the administrators - fear that they somehow aren't maintaining total control. This is the new nature of public spaces in New York. They are now primarily security zones, not avenues for creativity.
  - this_user 12y ago
    > "Then by effect they captured the beauty of the modern paranoid state where acts of vandalism spark mass-fear among the administrators - fear that they somehow aren't maintaining total control." IMO this only goes to show that the real terrorists have actually won. They knew they could never achieve victory in a direct confrontation, but they managed to make a country destroy itself by sacrificing its own values over paranoia. I do wonder if that was their real plan all along or if they themselves were surprised by how well it worked.
seanflyon 12y ago
At least they didn't put up a light bright. That would have been terrifying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
zerny 12y ago
Sure, anything can be art these days, even the 4chan post.
segmondy 12y ago
They are quite brave, they must never want to come back to US again. It takes very little these days to get banned, denied visa or put on the no fly list.
Houshalter 12y ago
What is the significance of this? I read the article and found it interesting, I just don't understand why it's on the top of HN. Stupid pranks like this happen every day in every city.

115 points by UVB-76 12y ago

>The artists stressed that when they removed those flags, they ceremonially folded them, “following the United States flag code,” Mr. Leinkauf said That's really respectful and a nice part of this story. It turns it from an act of vandalism into a true work of art in my opinion.

Crito 12y ago

I'm a little suprised that Mooninites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare) didn't get a mention in the article.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

Interestingly, especially given that any resulting court case will likely hinge on free speech, when I search for Matthias Wermke on Google from the UK, alongside the results I get this message - "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more" With the "Learn More" linking to a page on the recent EU right to be forgotten ruling. This message does not appear for the other artist, Mischa Leinkauf.

pgeorgi 12y ago
There are at least two other Matthias Wermkes that I ran into while searching around. Without tracing which pages are filtered it's hard to say who requested it. I get the message no matter which keywords I add to try to isolate one of them.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  True. I wonder if anyone has made a google results diffing tool yet. There must be one out there somewhere already, though whether it would show up on google results is another matter.
  - kybernetyk 12y ago
    I diffed for my name (because I really was curious why I was on the list). Local German IP vs US VPN. The results were the same. In a different order but all items were the same for the first 10 pages. So I guess it's just a "let's slap that footer onto all name related searches so we save a few DB queries".
DanBC 12y ago
That text should appear for all names whether there are removed searches or not. In this case Google isn't recognising Mischa Leinkauf as a name.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  The results I am getting from google.co.uk do not support that theory at all. Bob Smith - message saying results removed John Smith - no message Sally Smith - no message James Smith - message saying results removed Claire Smith - no message Deborah Smith - no message Colin Smith - no message Alison Smith - no message
  - yohui 12y ago
    That could just mean Google's algorithm isn't perfect. And Google only needs to ensure that the disclaimer appears often enough so that people won't assume its presence means results were removed. I definite recall it being stated that the disclaimers would be shown for name searches in Europe, not just name searches with results removed.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      Saying it just tries to flag all names, but just doesn't spot "John Smith" or "Alison Smith" as names, while managing ones such as "James Smith" and "Bob Smith", isn't very plausible.
kybernetyk 12y ago
I get this (from Germany) for almost any common name combination. And also for my name even though I never requested a removal - nor am I famous enough to be mentioned in other publications. I guess Google just adds this footer whenever someone searches for a name.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  "I guess Google just adds this footer whenever someone searches for a name." As I said, this does not happen for Mischa Leinkauf (it also doesn't happen for the combinations of Matthias Leinkauf, or Mischa Wermke). It also does not happen for John Smith, or Bob Dobbs.

weinzierl 12y ago

"...hoisting two big all-white American flags". That's a funny slip of the pen.

JadeNB 12y ago
I can understand that it doesn't seem to be a reasonable description (they are all-white stand-ins for what are usually American flags), but it doesn't seem to be a typo / slip of the pen—or were you making some joke or more subtle commentary that I missed?
- bpicolo 12y ago
  I believe he's referring to the fact that an all-white flag is just a flag, there's nothing American about it.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    These were actually very clearly, American flags made in all white. The typical pattern was existent in the construction, if not the coloring.
- UVB-76 12y ago
  They did actually resemble American flags, with the stars and stripes faintly visible. Edit: See this image: http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9622820.ece/binary/original/White-Flag-Brooklyn-Bridge.jpg http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9622820.ece/bin...
ChuckMcM 12y ago
You did not see the flags closely. They have all of the same 'design' as the regular flag, alternating horizontal stripes, a square in the corner with 50 stars, but the artists used two slightly different colors of while to construct the flag. It made them appear to be bleached white or something.
anonymouz 12y ago
Read on. They used two shades of "white" clothes to sew in the patterns.

rememberlenny 12y ago

Im building a service that helps keep track of public art and their artists. This was a piece I followed, because Im based in NYC. Flag incident page: http://www.publicartfound.com/graffitis/bb-white-flag http://www.publicartfound.com/graffitis/bb-white-flag Updated artists page: http://www.publicartfound.com/artists/mischa-leinkauf-matthias-wermke http://www.publicartfound.com/artists/mischa-leinkauf-matthi...

famousactress 12y ago
Awesome project!

bane 12y ago

Maybe I'm old, but I don't understand why this is art and why pulling a stupid juvenile prank makes the people who did it "artists". Is art really this dead?

pessimizer 12y ago
You're not old, just intolerant of different forms of art; this would have been art 50 years ago, too. It's actually a bit quaint and old fashioned.
HCIdivision17 12y ago
I suspect it's just not something you find particularly interesting. Personally, I think other people's reaction will be the fascinating part. I could easily see a segment of the population being incensed at the notion of someone flying a US flag resembling a flag of surrender. (Note: I'm in Dallas, Texas at the moment, so I expect slightly stronger responses.) Art's always legit to somebody, but even if this is just a goofy prank, it could take on a life of its own after, sorta post-factor legitimizing it. At the least, it could be a neat catalyst for a few flame wars.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
You're not old, it's just that nowdays "art" is defined as "anything that you can convince few people to call art", the more shocking and disgusting the better. On the other hand, I think we should have much more "stupid juvenile pranks". Society is grumpy and boring nowdays.
- bane 12y ago
  If these guys were called "professional pranksters" I'd be fine with it. Good on them, great prank. Lots of laughs. White flags, just like surrendering, haha. There's plenty of good modern art. I don't really think art should necessarily return to classic form. I'm writing this as I listen to some Steve Reich music and I have a Ryan McGinness print right over my computer. But I'm afraid the art world these days is basically optimized around trying to produce output that's purely intended to confuse, shock or outrage. It's like the art world has lost the ability to recognize and evoke any other emotion. It's become so insular and incestuous that so much that's produced in the art world these days has any relevance or meaning at all -- it's almost psychopathic. Except instead it's boring, pretentious and trite. Evoking negative emotions is easy. In the last year I've visited a number of very well known modern art collections. Looking at the unbelievably epic size of the works...just huge canvases filled with random stuff the artists felt like throwing at it, or big squares or lines or whatever, and massive multi-ton sculptures that were basically the result of a masonry 101 class or intro to welding two pieces of scrap iron together class. My only thought the entire time was that I was walking around a building composed of desperate cries for attention, "look at me! look at me!" each piece of screaming at me, but each showed me nothing of any particular note or interest. I stopped and just started laughing when I got to the pile of flame retardant foam that had just been sprayed into a pile and delivered to the museum. Carefully noted and called out as a special work by the curator so I wouldn't confuse it with an actual pile of leftover flame retardant foam from a previous fire or something. Half of the works were indistinguishable from a pile of garbage or a bad renovation project. And then I saw this http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4926/nampaikbuddha.jpg http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/4926/nampaikbuddha.jpg and I stopped regretting the time I was wasting instantly. It was beautiful, elegant, evocative, it worked on many many levels. There's not a lot to it. Somebody could probably set it up in 10 or 20 minutes. But it means something -- setting it up in the way it was provided all the context and meaning the work needed. It's interpretive. It's commentary. But it's doing something other than trying to say "look at me look at me! I'm art! I'm art!" It works in and out of the context of an art museum...which is more than a 20'x40' canvas filled with string and cat feces can claim. At another museum, I had the same feelings till I got to a special installation by Ryan McGuinness. It's easy to dismiss McGuinness's work as just a bunch of random clipart printed out on a large format printer. But what was expertly done with the installation was an overview of the process behind his work. And it was really breathtaking. A single piece is the culmination of hundreds or thousands of hours of behind the scenes work, and a real attempt to connect his art with the context it's placed in. And you realize as you walk through the process that there's no other way that he could have really arrived at his pieces except through this excruciatingly detailed and exacting process. Once you see the process, you learn to "see" his work and it's glorious and wonderful and exciting. This sat in stark contrast to the many many other pieces of modern art I've tried to spend time understanding -- even going to entire classes of art appreciation. Where the more I learn about the artist and their process and the work, the less and less impressed I am with it. During another visit, I met a local artist -- Matt Lively. And his thing is to paint bees on unicycles. That's it. They're usually done on small cuts of wood a few inches by a few inches, but sometimes on canvas. He's not trying to produce the next great world changing art movement. He's just making his little bees. And he could care less about what people thought about them. "I don’t have a lot of control over other people’s feelings," Matt describes. "So, I rarely think about [how my art will affect viewers] when creating a show." http://rockettsvillage.com/blog/07/2012/cedar-works-gallery-showcases-art-by-matt-lively#sthash.NJLB9JBG.dpuf http://rockettsvillage.com/blog/07/2012/cedar-works-gallery-... He's doing what he likes to do. It's not high art, but it's whimsical and does evoke an emotional feeling. And it's I think it's awesome. There's room in my view of art for low to high-brow stuff. What I don't have room for in my view is stupid nonsense posing as art. I know 90% of everything is crap. And there's lots of crap art out there. But I'd rather not be exposed to most of that 90% as if it was fantastic stuff I just didn't get. I get it, people desperately want attention and to feel important. Well if you want that, do something worth my attention, do something actually important. So when I say this flag stunt is a stupid juvenile prank, I'm saying it with lots of meaning and understanding of art behind the statement.

volune 12y ago

Extradition in 3, 2, 1...

pantalaimon 12y ago
Germany doesn't extradict it's citizen, it just turns a blind eye if they are kidnapped by the CIA.
- aetherson 12y ago
  I had no idea about this, and was writing off pantalaimon as engaging in hyperbole, so if anyone made the same mistake I did: It turns out that Germany does not in fact extradite its own nationals, except to other EU states. Source: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#GGengl_000P16 http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.ht...
happyscrappy 12y ago
I don't know, they kiss a lot of American ass in the article and it is essentially just trespassing. Sounds like they want to make sure they can come back to NYC with no hassle.
- exDM69 12y ago
  > Sounds like they want to make sure they can come back to NYC with no hassle. Unfortunately, I don't think this will happen. I would not be surprised if these individuals will never be allowed entry to the US again. People have been turned at the border for less. And similar breach of security events in the past have been prosecuted using terrorism laws. I do hope that I am wrong, though.
- genwin 12y ago
  They're terrorists, because someone in authority thought so, and that's all it takes nowadays. No way will they be allowed in the U.S. except delivered in handcuffs to a long solitary confinement.

driverdan 12y ago

What an overblown event which I suppose makes it a success. The fact that the police force and DA went nuts about it is ridiculous. I hope there are no legal consequences.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

pg_is_a_butt 12y ago

they didn't "put white flags" anywhere... they bleached existing colorful flags.

dasil003 12y ago

The only thing embarrassing about this to the authorities is their reaction. It ought to be apparent to anyone that providing perfect security is impossible, and that pretending we can is akin to a child sticking fingers in their ears and shouting "la-la-la". I think it's already clear that if we catch you doing terrorism you'll never see the light of day again, so "trying to send a strong message" about pranks like this just makes us look weak and vulnerable.

jobu 12y ago
I was going to say the same thing, and this quote from one of them made me laugh: "We really didn’t intend to embarrass the police." The police did it to themselves. If they had blown it off as a waste of time and resources to investigate some prank, then they could've saved face and preserved the myth of the current "security theatre".
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- vampirechicken 12y ago
  But the question that will come from the chicken hawks is "If these guys could do it, why couldn't somebody bent on causing real harm?"
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    Screw the chicken hawks. They only have power because we agree to pretend that they do.
    - vampirechicken 12y ago
      Once they get elected, cops have to answer to them and behave in ways to placate them.
mturmon 12y ago
The reflex of treating this intervention as some kind of security threat is embarrassing. I read an article at the time musing that the white flags meant something about surrender. Like a child in a cave scaring himself by whispering "boo". The installation, by the way, reminded me of Richard Ankrom's guerrilla modification of a well-known freeway sign near downtown LA (http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html). The artist had a sign fabricated to Caltrans specs, got a haircut and a hard hat, and did the install in broad daylight (on a weekend). It was up for over 8 years -- Caltrans noticed it after a couple of months. Eventually it was replaced by a similar design by actual Caltrans workers.

owenversteeg 12y ago

It's ridiculous that the police are threatening severe consequences. It's a harmless prank.

0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
It's their job and maybe even their nature to threaten. Would you feel okay if they responded with a meme?
- cracell 12y ago
  I'd feel much safer if they could laugh it off. Responding they way they did is illogical and just reenforces the idea that many in the American government now see the America people as the enemy.

suprgeek 12y ago

The Artists sure made a statement! The truly wonderful part of this action is that the statement they made was perhaps not the one they intended. New Yorker's sensitivities aside, this beautifully demonstrated how bat-shit crazy the govt. & the media has become over terrorism fears. The NYPD did initially consider this to be an art-project [1]...and had they let it go at that, things would have been much less embarrassing now. So an unlikely pair of Germans (allegedly) deserve kudos for exposing the American scardey-cat responses & massive waste of resources and time that can be brought about by simple (but unusual) things. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/22/us/new-york-brooklyn-bridge-flags/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/22/us/new-york-brooklyn-bridge-fl...

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dmix 12y ago
This quote from the artists summed up the parallel nicely: > “We saw the bridge, which was designed by a German, trained in Berlin, who came to America because it was the place to fulfill his dreams, as the most beautiful expression of a great public space,” Mr. Leinkauf said. “That beauty was what we were trying to capture.” Then by effect they captured the beauty of the modern paranoid state where acts of vandalism spark mass-fear among the administrators - fear that they somehow aren't maintaining total control. This is the new nature of public spaces in New York. They are now primarily security zones, not avenues for creativity.
- this_user 12y ago
  > "Then by effect they captured the beauty of the modern paranoid state where acts of vandalism spark mass-fear among the administrators - fear that they somehow aren't maintaining total control." IMO this only goes to show that the real terrorists have actually won. They knew they could never achieve victory in a direct confrontation, but they managed to make a country destroy itself by sacrificing its own values over paranoia. I do wonder if that was their real plan all along or if they themselves were surprised by how well it worked.

seanflyon 12y ago

At least they didn't put up a light bright. That would have been terrifying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare

zerny 12y ago

Sure, anything can be art these days, even the 4chan post.

segmondy 12y ago

They are quite brave, they must never want to come back to US again. It takes very little these days to get banned, denied visa or put on the no fly list.

Houshalter 12y ago

What is the significance of this? I read the article and found it interesting, I just don't understand why it's on the top of HN. Stupid pranks like this happen every day in every city.