As a collective, Public Access wanted to probe the relation between aesthetics and politics,
between theory and practice, art and everyday life. All of these questions converged around the
notion of public spaces and access to those spaces. Some Uncertain Signs, Public Access’ first
project was borne of these questions. In collaboration with Electromedia, who donated time and
space on their animated pixelboard on Yonge Street, south of Bloor, Public Access commissioned
22 artists to show some work, interspersed amidst the paid advertising generally featured on
the screen. The 22 works displayed were selected by the collective from a call for proposals,
preference being given to those which best addressed both the technology and advertising context
of the medium. The works were representative of contemporary artistic and literary practices and
were very generally concerned with questions of representation, ideology and the language of
consumption.
Select list of artists and projects