Rotem Rozental enjoys the urban art crimes in Tel-Aviv and thinks the city has become a gallery for the masses.

The world has long ago become our playground, just ask Bin-Laden. Almost anyone has first-time memories of scribbling with a pen on a bus station or spraying graffiti on the city buildings walls around. At the early 90's "the wall" was a for me a living monument. The wall (which was really a cardboard divide by the offices of what is today Lev Cinema in Dizengoff Center) became a popular meeting point and therefore also had to tolerate all our antics of that time. If I remember correctly, they focused mostly on Pearl Jam and the untimely death of Kurt Cobain. Countless guards tried to stop us, but no one could destroy the pre- cellular period's most immediate communication. And maybe our work can't be called artwork, but we managed to create a kind of complex community like only teenagers can. But whoever doesn't see the connection between complexes and building a society is denying his part in the state of Israel.

Like in any creative activity, the base materials affect the piece's character. The walls, sidewalks and the countless opportunities of the urban space are not exceptional. Creation in the urban space is subject to the many whims of the public, and therefore it is powerful and magical. It creates immediate communication between the creator and the viewer. Like a billboard, but without the fat budget. In the boiling swamp of Tel-Aviv, you can find various urban art crimes under every yellow street lamp. The tempting immediateness of conveying the message supplies an endless current of information through the walls. Just come out and look.

Pixel Romance
When Michael and Yochai were in their second year in Betsal'el they began a project that enabled innocent bystanders read the city a little differently. They wanted to incorporate themselves, take a part, and influence it. After a few tries, they decided upon the signs bearing street names, the definite urban marker of every city. They saw the signs as the heart leading the city, a heart that enables it to be read from side to side. The urban grid. They decided to get involved and add to the city's core a second layer for fun. To create a less political, less angry reading, and if possible, even to put a smile on a passerby's face.

Late at night, armed with a stool, images pasted on transparent stickers and a hanging toolkit, they set out on the streets of Jerusalem and pasted their stickers inside thirty harmless street signs. The municipality removed all the stickers, all but one left on a dark street corner. Tel-Aviv is apparently a city better suited in nature for the project, and indeed the match was good one, to the pleasure of everyone involved. The sticker project was organized better technically and lasted longer in the Gush Dan capital. The city to city move also affected the project's scope and its topics.

About two years and a half ago we first ran into the large, pixilated images printed on transparent stickers sticking out of the white street signs. It was magic. Suddenly the signs emerged from their familiar weariness and turned into boxes of light. The hanging itself, by the way, is done by unscrewing the light box, cleaning the inner Perspex and pasting the sticker.

The municipality removed most of the stickers this time as well, but the public's reaction was completely different. People scheduled to meet under the crocodile sign, taxi drivers found a new way to memorize streets and for a moment we had a romance of pixels. Their street art was (willingly) taken out of its personal artistic context and became something that touches everyone's everyday life. The smile with which the city's inhabitants received the signs and the way they made them a part of their lives, turned the personal creation a giant, gripping group activity. The two creator's disinterest in exposure also neutralizes the megalomaniac factor - which leads, as we know, so many art pieces - and leaves the artwork a public property untraced by ego.

Underground Hearts
On the project's second round, done a year ago, they planted little people inside the signs. This time they went on their journey militant-style, and sent six crews who inserted, in one night, dozens of stickers into signs in various areas. The municipality attempted to get rid of the stickers this time as well, but failed its attempt to eradicate the artistic virus. By Yochai's last count, there are now 300 stickers citywide.

The recent round began one and a half week ago, and this time in the spirit of hears. If you are in love, this is the time to lift your head and feel the world is in love with you. If you aren't, you are welcome to vomit over the previous sentence. The clothes store "Hamakhteret" staff decided to join the party and corresponded with the topic across their store's front wall. A giant, almost pixilated heart was suddenly painted on the wall which hosts occasional artworks. The current correspondence adds another layer of joint, independent creation to the urban grid.