Open Your Eyes

“Open Your Eyes,” a new work by artist Godot, focuses on the important role advertising plays on determining human consumption patterns, and thus, climate change. By removing the eyes from advertisements and placing them on the mountains of paper created by those same advertisements, Godot points out the blind eye advertising casts towards the use of natural resources.

These numerous eyes stolen from advertisements contrast directly with the many eyes gathered from street art paintings around the city of Berlin. This juxtaposition between culture created to sell products and culture created for the sake of beauty, examines the conflicting sets of cultural values that struggle to shape popular culture. One, notably, is illegal - the other is bought - a further comment on ability to purchase influence, and the irony of a society where it is legal to publicly advertise cyanide-infused tobacco harvested by children in Uganda, but painting an eye on a wall is a crime.

The symbol of the eye draws our gaze away from the flashy advertisements and towards the true story behind these products and their impact on our global climate.

Music by Supergood (www.supergood.org)