BYM

First of all, we are not gone, we are not dead and we did not fly away.

It has been a period full of stuff and things to do for everyone: we've travelled a lot and disconnect from the web, ( thing usefull sometimes also for the health).

Leaving aside recent adventures at home, Red and me have made the Way of St.James, not just for a particular religious devotion but as a human experience (most of all none of us hasn't ever find someone else who would do it). Then I flew to Berlin for a few weeks to work, followed by a return at home quite complicated (would be enought for you to know that in this moment I'm writing, stumbling Internet at friends'homes using a laptop borrowed from my sister): I mean, not exactly a summer full of beers on the beach, but very positive.

In any case, our city / virtual underground has moved on its own and looking trought through the pages I counted over 600 artworks! Some kick asses! And from all over the World!

We have to ask forgiveness to who was expecting for billboard activities or to who wrote us this summer: yes we admit it, we have not checked the email accounts but we have some surprise from Bologna, which has remained too long on the hard disk.

Excuses that are especially for the kids from StiCkMyWorld, that asked us to participate in the exhibition 20Keith Roma, that we have shamefully lost on the road during these almost three months on the run.

Seeing the video of the opening, embedded below, seems very nice and we strongly suggest at who is in Rome to make a round overthere until 3rd of October (Galleria Espositiva “Ex Roma Club Monti” in Via Baccina at nro 66 in Rome.)

As we had anticipated a few days ago, we have been contacted by several brands proposing us different kinds of collaborations.

Among all, only one seemed to perfectly fit for us.

This brand, as you probably saw in the home page site is Emily The Strange, a streetwear brand that I imagine you know, the one with the girl with the headband.

What offered us?

To continue doing what we were doing (this is the reason why we like it) but online and make it available to everyone: each of you will have the option, entering and browsing the city, to do its artwork and to publish it in the sites (see the list under the city) where Emily has paid, for us, the media spaces.

The city seems pretty cool, with lots of details and characters: there's also the subway!

Once you missed a bit 'to see what people is doing, you can choose a billboard and customize it as you want: you can also upload photos and within the palette there are also all our symbols, our ammo.

If you do not like something that you have done, drag it out of the artwork and that item will be trashed.

After you have saved and published your artwork, you'll see it in the city, in the gallery below and around the sites, you can also save the image with your artwork set in the city and share it (on FB) as a postcard.

For us it's cool: funny, democratic and powerful at same time, we hope you like it too. If you have something to say, this might be the right time :)

For the record, the blog has not been evicted but moved to a new address: http://blog.beyourselfmovement.com where we will continue to talk about our raids, ideas and insights.

See you soon!

BYM

Ok, I have this problem, with news and presents, after a while, i'm not able to keep them secret and i want to give insights to who should receive them.

I'v been too good enought and now I want to share news with you.

As we stated in the last post, few days ago, in these months we have received, in addition to many email from you, some proposals by brands that want to collaborate with us.

Among the proposals we received, many are those that we discarded, I would not tell you now the junky stuff we were asked for, maybe we'll dedicate a post ahead.

But a part these above, there is one that seems to work and that we have chosen to follow.
We feel like before a test: excited and under your opinion.

But, we are confident that the project, we have chosen, kicks asses.

This brand has never been in the dark side of advertising (as far as we know) and has values close to ours, but this does not matter so much as above all, through this cool project we are going to have the opportunity to pimp our reach and our message without distorting it.

We hope to have chosen well, this choice for us is not only ours, but belongs to all of you who have supported us in these months.

See you.

Sofa. American coffee. Outside is finally sunny.

Yesterday night we all met in Bologna for a drink and we reasoned out on what we have done 'til now, on how many emails we recived and about media coverage we got.

In the end, yeah, are satisfactions...

We received a lot of emails from normal people who decided to support our movement and our ideas, a lot from people who decided to support us in the activty in Italy or in other countries in the world and also many from newspapers and magazine that gave us spaces on Repubblica, Il Tempo and City.


Guy wrote us, willing to help us bring our message to South Africa (maybe we'll see something during the Football World Cup 2010 ); Tamara wrote us from Brasil, telling she's ready to work to export BYM in her hometown Sao Paolo; Fabian and Miles, not only wrote us but also became BYM's activist, sending us some shots of what they've done in Paris. And Like all above, we received a lot of messages from many different cities in Italy, like Turin, Brescia, Genova, Lecce, Perugia and Modena, just to name a few...

We were asked for several interviews, 3 of them already published, others will come out soon (we'll hope! ). We also received two invites to go to shows, do not know for expose what, but we are glad of it...
If only my mom knows I'm invited to shows and i'm asked to answer interviews.... :D:D

In these weeks are not even missed brand's and companies' proposals.

Some, probably, much more interested in their own visibility rather then our messege, tried to ask us to deface their billboard, others to realize new ones. For a writer, have legal walls to paint and gat paid to, is a check point or at least it is cool. For us, thanks, but we are not interested.

Others proposed us ideas and instruments/tools more or less interesting to get our message even further, whithout distorting it, whitout modifying it or submitting it to any product or service. Of all the proposal, one seems interesting, so expect some news in the nexty days.

Since we've not yet done, I take this opportunity to publicly thanks some people who suported us:
Cico, Lucia, Marco, Stefano, Arianna, Davide, Guy should now have left his hometown to South Africa, Tamara from Brasil, Marc from Berlin, F. from do not know where, Romain from France, Kudra from Turkey, Michele, M. from Naples, Edit from Budapest, Lucia, Kent, Matteo, Caterina, Mrg. Julius, Alberto, Annamaria, Elisa, Valentina, Alessandra, Giovanna, Dario, Fabian, Miles and all those that I have forgotten or who have registered on FB or Utube channel.

Italian newspaper La Repubblica, milan edition, published this morning a short column about us. Not only, they also put a photogallery on their website and freepress newspaper City, made a short video about us.

Now, beside the support, which is great, someone must explain to Emy why they forgot about her :)

Looking at the unexpected attention we raised, last weekend we decided to accept Emy invitation, who was born there, to change a bit air and make a German weekend in Berlin

Could we obviously lose the opportunity to export the BYM in Teutonic lands?! Of course not, so here's a little propaganda we did.


And of course the usual intensive billboard treatment, here made more difficult due to very careful local Polizei.

Few days after Repubblica newspaper, Il tempo another italian newspaper from rome talks about us. Here a closer image.

Looking at emails and facebook messages we recived, it seems that in some way we crossed italian boundaries

This morning we had a surprise, the italian newspaper "La Repubblica" talks about us with an article and the video on their website. Yeah!

Guests at Red's house and excited by the action in Milan, last weekend we all moved to rome for a week end full of Cacio and Pepe pasta, BYM propaganda and advertising treatment.


As usual we stated with some propaganda activities around the city hitting some sensible areas like schools, university and meeting points.



Then we dedicated half a day and a night to "treat" some billboard around the city. Below some pics




Great Weekend, great job, now we'll start thinking about next action...

Now that problems with counter are solved, this morning came up a new surprise: it seems that an ultra-sensible youtube user felt disturbed by our video and flagged it as inappropriate. Since this morning YT administrators restricted access only to user over 18 y.o.

Video is still available here but we also uploaded another version to be sure everyone can wach it.

Aided by the frenzy over the Milan Design Week and by the calmer “metropolitan” atmosphere, we took the chance to organise a double raid on Lombardy.

Advertising flyers appeared all over Milan, on university notice boards and in schools and shops. We also flooded the Tortona district that at the time was full of tourists who hopefully heard our message.



To don't lose the habit, we have "taked care" of some billboards around using some ammo that LaRed have prepared. See the pics below.

Since we uploaded our new video to YouTube last Monday the number of hits got stuck on 309. We really don’t know how this is possible; could it be censorship?