Guerilla Public Service -- Highway Sign Fix

What if vigilantes took it into their own hands to fix bad signage?

Every day drivers were missing their turn because the exit was not properly marked.

Richard Ankrom a sign painter and artist spent 2 years researching and building everything from the proper font, to the correct color of blue, to the exact type of reflectors. He even printed out a work order, lest he be approached by authorities questioning this authorization for the job. After he created and installed the the new sign, it took 9 months before anyone noticed that it was out of place. Caltrans responded that it had the sign on order, but it took 8 years before Caltrans replaced the “artwork” with something official. ¹

America’s First Freeway: The Arroyo Seco Parkway, aka, the 110

QUESTION:

1. Have you ever fixed something public that was bothering you, and that you thought would help other people?

   1. I didn’t “fix” anything so involved as this but a few years ago I found the door exposing a traffic light electronics open on a windy and flurrying day. There had been recent construction at that intersection. I closed and locked the door and then called the non-emergency police line.

2. The video describing the sign-making describes the 90s as a most uneventful era, when post cold war stability enabled this sort of sign-making quest rise to the top of someone’s agenda. Are there other projects of this type that you are aware of in what one might call the “Seinfeld Era”?

3. There are several ways to describe this:

   1. Socially Useful Prank

   2. Guerilla Public Service (Ankrom’s language)

   3. Vigilante — broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice

   4. Performance Art - an artwork or art installation in the art world where the artist is present in the work. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a public in a fine art context in an interdisciplinary mode.^[1] Also known as artistic action, it has been developed through the years as a genre of its own in which art is presented live. It had an important and fundamental role in 20th century avant-garde art. Performance artists often challenge the audience to think in new and unconventional ways, break conventions of traditional arts, and break down conventional ideas about "what art is".

   5. What word would you use to describe this?

4. What are some other examples of Performance Art that you are aware of?

5. What does Ankrom’s sign suggest to you artistically?

DETAILS:

Longer profile piece:

ELSEWHERE:

Sign-maker Richard Ankrom’s Documentary:

Guerrilla Public Service 2011

Guerilla Public Service Redux: Best Audio Version

YouTube Comments:

I love how they said they were already “in the process of upgrading all those signs” & how they had “ordered a new sign” yet his sign still remained up for 8 years!!

Reddit:

WyndiMan: This retelling of the story missed a significant point that helps explain why he was able to get away with putting the sign up.

Not only did he do up the fake work truck and safety equipment, etc., he did it while Caltrans was in the middle of a different project at the 4-level just up the road. There were already cones down, the left lanes closed, and the flashing merge right signs ahead of where the signage in question was. So of course no one would question a Caltrans worker doing work in that area!

Another telling of this story is here:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/guerrilla-public-service/

1. Correction to the video title — Caltrans noticed within 8-9 months, but they didn’t replace it for 8 years.