Here is the virtual version of the part of the exhibition "City for Sale" organized by Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw as a part of "Warsaw Under Contruction 2012" festival.

Narration was developed and designed by Tymek Borowski, and Augmented Reality (AR) apps were created by 3R Studio LTD company.

Many experts are of the opinion that traditional advertising is becoming less effective. Billboards draw the attention of a small (and constantly declining) percentage of people. Even if people do catch a glimpse of the ad, they are almost never convinced by it.

It is almost as if the brains of pedestrians are wired with the connection: colour billboard = nothing interesting. The well-known Internet phenomenon of 'ad blindness' has made its way into our city's streets.

Companies specialising in outdoor advertising ensure their customers that large-format advertising is effective. Their argument: the bigger the ad, the better its visibility. This is why they adopt forceful resolutions, like offering ever bigger wallscapes, mobile billboards and LED screens.

Having fully exhausted every feature of traditional media such as billboards and posters, advertising is becoming more and more interactive and is increasingly often using innovative technologies. Experiences taken from computer games are transferred to the real world.

Obviously, advertising that encourages passers-by to interact with it will engage them more than a static poster. The deal: "We'll give you a little entertainment. And you remember our brand." This is an important factor - advertisers understand that they need to give the consumer something concrete in order to get his attention in return.

We spend more and more time in our homes, "surfing the web." We are ever more removed from real experiences: spending time on social networks often replaces real meetings with people. We are coming to appreciate unusual events more and more. Advertisers are well aware of this.

And so they create events, street games and micro-communities associated with their products. Such events trigger real emotions and leave a strong imprint in our memory. They have a huge potential to turn us into loyal brand fans. We begin to associate the advertised product with breaking social conventions and establishing unexpected interpersonal contacts.

On the whole, we are more and more inclined to ignore advertisements. But if they happen to refer to something that really interests us, they will end up getting our attention. Online advertising is becoming increasingly effective. Google, Facebook and other companies are gathering data about your interests. The banners that you see on the web are matched to your specific interests.

Today, advertisers no longer buy advertising space - they buy the views of a specific audience, paying for ads which are displayed before a precisely defined target group.Once AR technology becomes more widespread and user-friendly, it will usher in the true era of personalised outdoor advertising. Instead of billboards, companies will buy the right to put advertising "before consumers' very eyes".

More than advertising, people trust opinions they find on the Internet. They are even more inclined to trust positive reviews on specialised blogs, while almost everyone believes the recommendations of their friends.

Advertisers therefore focus on making you ,find ou that your friend has bought a given product, or that he or she likes to spend time in a given place. Let us imagine how this would look when combined with Augmented Reality in the urban space.

For advertisers, an effective - and socially useful - option is to sponsor various projects. More broadly speaking: to give people some real value, obviously embellished with the right logo. This is in no way new. Suffice it to mention medieval paintings of people who sponsored them. The modern version of this idea consists of sponsoring music festivals and other cultural events.

Let us develop this idea and imagine the following legal solution: the only permissible form of urban advertising are truly useful objects (such as small architectural forms or even small buildings) funded by the advertisers.

We live in interesting times. Technological know-how is spreading through the Internet at hitherto unknown speeds. Homegrown engineers are developing excellent, innovative products - often far better than those marketed by large corporations.

Out of all of the emerging state-of-the-art technologies, it is especially worth paying attention to "3D printing". Instead of injecting ink onto a flat surface, 3D Printers "print" using a variety of plastic particles. To put it simply: we load our ready project onto our computer and the machine "prints" a real, existing object - or perhaps even another machine.

Previously, if you wanted to organise a professional graphic design studio, make music, etc., you needed a huge amount of expensive equipment. Today, thanks to personal computers, it can be done at a minimal cost (and even in the comfort of your bedroom).

3D printers will have the same effect on industrial production. In our home workshop, we will be able to manufacture products which do not differ in complexity and craftsmanship from those produced by large, specialised factories. A new Industrial Revolution awaits.

What's that got to do with our exhibition? Well, this change will also turn the advertising market on its head. Instead of big-budget, large-scale advertising campaigns, we’ll see specialised ads by niche manufacturers.

Imagine a world in which big corporations will be replaced by legions of small workshops.

Perhaps advertising as we know it - which tries at all costs to produce "positive association" with a product - will totally disappear? This concerns not just outdoor advertising, but indeed the phenomenon of advertising as a whole.

Already, more and more people are going shopping armed with reliable information, expert reviews, and hard data. The consumer is starting to select products rationally by looking at their quality and functionality. Consumers are growing in strength, and manufacturers are well aware of this. We are seeing the arrival of an era when, instead of trying to brainwash people, they will focus on improving their products.

...and that's all, folks! If you've enjoyed it, we'd be thankful for sharing this site. Thanks for your attention and see you next time.