In our briefing on the State of the Arts we looked at how digital art is breaking out of our screens and finding its way into physical spaces. Generally those spaces are galleries but often the best way to get noticed is to occupy public space. A new exhibition curated by RJ Rushmore, is using billboards in New York subway stations to display digital artworks.

While the concept of digital to physical art in the subway may seem slightly confusing, the idea behind Bob-Omb couldn’t be simpler.  See an ad on a subway platform, point your camera at it, and watch the ad transform into an artistic GIF on your screen.

Bob-omb includes 39 GIFs by 13 individuals and collectives ranging from filmmakers to illustrators to journalists. Viewing the art work requires viewers to download the NO AD augmented reality app, created by Re+Public, an artistic collective (made up of PublicAdCampaign, The Heavy Projects, and the Subway Art Blog) whose remit extends beyond Bob-omb. The group plan to use art as a tool for re-imagining public space whilst providing a pleasant antidote to uninspiring commercialism.

GIFs are certainly gaining traction in the the art world and often using original back-drops to do so. Last month we saw INSA make the worlds largest GIF spanning 14,000 square metres and photographed from a satellite in space.