JR: JR Reality and the Power of Portraits

Charlie Melcher:

Hi, I’m Charlie Melcher, founder of The Future of Storytelling, and it’s my pleasure to welcome you to the FoST Podcast. My guest today is JR, a French artist and photographer who prints large scale portraits and pastes them in public locations around the world, from the suburbs of Paris to the slums of Brazil. Some of his best known projects include Guns in America, a talking mural and Time Magazine cover about gun control, a large scale pasting at a maximum security prison, and a gigantic installation at the US-Mexico border.

Charlie Melcher:

After winning the TED Prize in 2011, JR created Inside Out, a global participatory art project that helps communities to make a statement by displaying large scale black and white portraits in public places. His latest project, JR Reality, is perhaps his most ambitious yet. Partnering with Superblue, the innovative experiential art enterprise, and AR pioneers, Niantic Inc, he’s created an augmented reality platform that enables anyone with a smartphone to add their voices and their stories to geotagged locations throughout their city. Currently available in New York and coming soon to Miami and elsewhere, the app makes it easier than ever for communities to share their stories and leave a lasting impression on their surroundings.

Charlie Melcher:

It’s truly a privilege to speak with JR today about this project, the creative process behind it, and what it means for both him and for the world. Please join me in welcoming JR.

Charlie Melcher:

JR, it’s such an honor to have you on the Future of Storytelling podcast, [foreign language 00:02:05].

JR:

[foreign language 00:02:05].

Charlie Melcher:

We’re excited to have you here. Something that I’ve always loved about your work is the collaborative nature, and this new project you’re doing, the JR Reality, kind of augmented reality project, has the potential to become the largest digital collective art project in the world. How can people participate in this new AR project?

JR:

Well, in the process of all my project, it’s really super easy, and for the regular insider projects, people would use our website, upload photos, and then we would print them and ship them back to them so they can paste them. But I wanted to go a step further for two reason. One is because this way people can do it in instantaneously. They can just be at someplace, use the app, take their portrait on the app, and then say, “I want it here, this place floating in the street. I want it to join this wall with other people.” And so all those virtual wall floating murals started appearing everywhere.

JR:

But a great thing about it is that people can record their story with it. And that’s one thing that I realize over the years doing those Chronicles project. The Chronicles project is murals I’ve started doing a couple years ago where I depict an entire community, so sometime 800 people, 1,200 people of a city, of a neighborhood, around a subject. And you see everyone like a puzzle next to each other, but you can click on every single person and hear their story. And I realized how powerful is that part of people recording their story, how they want to record it, not me asking them question. Really just what they want to share. And this is the first way with the app, actually, to have that possibility that within the Inside Out project, people can actually record their story.

Charlie Melcher:

So people will download the app and then they are prompted to include an image to record their story and to geotag it to a particular location.

JR:

Exactly. And then people can either walk around and find some murals. They can also from home just click and start listening, what are the issues that people are talking in New York City, in San Francisco, in France, and wherever. They zoom in and they’ll see a map of the world where it would pop from all of those places.

JR:

And so it’s very fascinating because you know what? When we started doing this project, you realize it’s the same thing always. It’s just portraits and we send it to people, but depending of the context and where people live, people have very different message. They don’t live in the same reality somehow. And so that often, because we all live in our little bubble, is a great way to understand the world through the voice of the people.

Charlie Melcher:

You mentioned that this is somewhat inspired by the Inside Out community storytelling project that you started after winning the TED Prize. What was your journey from Inside Out to this new digital evolution of it? What inspired you to do it this way?

JR:

Well, since 2011 with the team here in New York, we actually send more than half a million portraits.

Charlie Melcher:

Wow!

JR:

So it’s millions of people who have helped pasted and communities gathering. So it really became a movement. And our journey through that was realizing that it’s infinite. The project doesn’t belong to us anymore. It’s part of the people. That I stop it or not, it doesn’t matter. People are still doing it. They can print by themselves if they want. You imagine a black and white portrait, it’s just a face, and on the background you have some dots. And that just is a way to recognize that it’s part of the art project. Some people do it just with a white background. We don’t force the dots, but usually people love to use them because then right away you recognize them in the street and you create a coherence between the portrait.

JR:

But I would say the journey was that, was realizing that there were so many people around the world in so many different countries that wanted to express themself. That while some people were doing it in primary school and high school wanted just to express themself, and some others were fighting for their rights during the revolution in Tunisia, for example, and replaced all the photos of the dictator by their own photo or marching in places where they get arrested and go to jail for it. So in some place it’s welcome as art, in some areas, people went to jail for it. So it’s just that same piece of paper. It’s just doesn’t have the same meaning and it’s just a portrait. So it’s very interesting. We’ve been observing that, helping communities around the world to participate. That’s what the team do upstairs here all day, talking every language and helping people just to navigate.

JR:

But most of the project actually, people just figure out by themselves. They go on the website, they’re like, “Oh, okay. This is free, or I can even give a donation and pay for it.” We just want people to gather people around them to do it.

Charlie Melcher:

Right.

JR:

So right now you need to be between 30 and 50 people so that it’s a group and that forced them to think and to be, “Oh, let me talk to that person and talk to this person.” And then when they find the wall, they say they have to ask this person for the wall, this guy for the ladder, this guy to help for the glue. And I realized that that’s the power of the project. It’s not that the photos are beautiful, it’s that it gathers community and it’s those connections that actually create such an impact.

Charlie Melcher:

So this AR project is the first time that you’re moving from paper and glue, because even Inside Out ended up with paper and glue-

JR:

Yeah.

Charlie Melcher:

To pixels and geotags. What excites you about augmented reality as a medium to work in?

JR:

In my work, I’ve been pasting on walls, then I’ve been building scaffolding of a building to then use the city as a playground. And now it’s like someone telling you, “Hey, wait, there’s another layer now that you can use,” which is anywhere. And that’s actually pretty insane. The one thing that I realized was, okay, that’s fun, but I still want people to go in the street and walk around and point their phones somewhere, but at least it will force them to walk that place to see the mural.

JR:

And so to me, it’s very important that there’s still this need to go and see by yourself because that’s when you change your perspective about an issue, the world, the community. And that’s a very powerful way of changing the world just by changing the perspective you have on it. But for that, you need to go see it and just for something random, and then you’ll have interaction, you’ll talk to some people, you’ll maybe struggle finding it and someone will help you. The journey to it is always the important part.

Charlie Melcher:

I feel some real affinity because I’m also somebody who started in paper and ink and glue making books, and then made a transition to making things that are digital. In fact, I’ve been working on an augmented reality game or app right now with Niantic also. Niantic Labs is the company that you collaborated with to make this.

JR:

Yeah, exactly.

Charlie Melcher:

They’re the world’s best at AR.

JR:

Yeah, clearly.

Charlie Melcher:

Everyone who knows them from Pokemon Go AR, which was that international phenomenon. Billions of downloads and plays. And I’m so honored to have John Hanke, who’s the CEO of Niantic Labs, be part of the Future of Storytelling community.

Charlie Melcher:

Tell me about your process of collaborating with Niantic. And here’s the trick question, do you think that AR games are the new form of art?

JR:

Well, there’s two things. Working with them have been an amazing process because we were so new into this. We just knew the power of art and the power of getting people together, but we had to find a way to translate that. So there’s been a lot of back and forth, a lot of work and trial, and still, we still have a long journey because with technology, everything’s progressing every day.

JR:

So to me, it’s not necessarily just the future, it’s just that it’s becoming a fun part of what’s possible out there. There’s so many forms possible, it’s just that certainly this form is taking a real part of the art world and of what you can imagine in terms of, okay, you can create an artwork that’s physical and then you can continue in augmented reality. There’s so many layers. It just add a dimension to it, and to me, the beauty is that you’ve been working on something for so long and then you’re like, “Oh wow, there’s a new dimension coming.”

Charlie Melcher:

I think one of the big challenges though, for artists and storytellers who have historically created their thing, done it just how they want to do it and then put it out there. And the audience either likes it or they don’t, but it’s done and it’s fixed. But here you are creating, in a way, the ultimate handing the mic over, the paintbrush over to the public. What have you learned about collaborating with the public, with other people to make art?

JR:

Well, it’s a very important point. In 2011, I had to think about that project and imagine it of like, okay, how do I give away my process to people?

Charlie Melcher:

Right.

JR:

And it’s very intimidating to do that. I had involved many people over the past years when I started constantly, but to suddenly say, “No, no, you know what? You can do it by yourself,” was a huge step. And it was not easy. And we learned a lot from that. Of course, at first people say, “Are you not afraid that extremist and people who want to send the wrong message use it, and then suddenly you become a platform for that?” And I say, it’s true, it’s a possibility. But then what’s the other side of that, is that I would have to select project and say, “Well, I like this project. I don’t like that one.” Who am I to decide that?

JR:

So I just had to take the risk. And we say, “Those are the rules,” you need to be not attached to a brand, not attached to an organization. It needs to be your projects, an idea, a message you want to share, and to get it out there will help you that you have the money or not to do it. But it could be anything. It would be just because you love the color blue or it would be to fight for your right, and we won’t judge that. We’ll help you no matter what.

JR:

The first couple years people were also wondering, “Well, we saw your project in Peru,” and have never been in Peru, for example. I would love to go, I just haven’t had a chance. But they say, “Yeah, but it was just small posters.” I mean, they’re pretty big, but compared to the size I usually do. And I say, “Oh, no, no, those are people that are inspired by my work and did their own project with their own message. They went and paste them. It’s their photo.” For the first couple years, people had a hard time understanding that. I knew it would be a long term thing, and now that we are more than a decade later, people understand that. And it’s good. I think when there’s more risk to fail than to succeed, that’s why it’s interesting. And as artists, that’s the road we should take.

Charlie Melcher:

I’ve heard you mention that fear is an important part of the process. You’ve put yourself in places that can be a little dangerous or challenging, not obviously for this AR experience, but in some of your previous projects. And I’ve often thought that fear is one of those things that’s underrated. People want to stay away from it, but in fact, it can be incredibly motivating in the creative process.

JR:

To me, I try to embrace it. I remember when I started, people always tell me, “Oh, okay, I love that project, but what you going to do next?” And I’m sure you’re also doing so many projects, people are like, “Oh, that’s great. I loved your new project, but what are you doing next?” And it’s a very hard question because then you feel, “Oh gosh, it took me so long to arrive to that and now, actually, what’s next?” And I realize that I enjoy the fact of not knowing what’s next. Being in the unknown, that means it’s so much more possible than just knowing everything that’s going to happen in the next 10 years, 20 years.

Charlie Melcher:

I imagine you’re like me, which is you being at the beginning of a learning curve-

JR:

Exactly.

Charlie Melcher:

… As opposed to being at the top. Then it’s boring.

JR:

Exactly. And of course, things that needs to have a process and beginning and end, but sometime I love when the process is a bit longer, when the process is a bit more complicated and involve more people. It’s more painful, but those becomes the good stories after.

Charlie Melcher:

Absolutely. You’ve traditionally used large walls to do your postings, to hang your art, yet your art is always about bringing walls down between people, breaking them down, getting to these important questions, getting people to consider their own prejudices or to see the world a little differently, or get them to communicate with each other. How do you think that will work when the walls you’re working with are virtual and only visible through an app?

JR:

Well, through the app, what you do when you walk in the street and you go listen to someone’s story is you’re breaking a very invisible wall. But that’s very important. The biggest walls are within us. They’re not necessarily built by states or government. I’ll give you an example on a project that I’ve done around gun control in America. And of course it would be very hard for an artist to gather people who don’t believe the same belief in the same room because if you take people who are pro-gun and people are anti-gun and people from the NRA and people for all sides, they would not accept to be in the same room. Well, I’ve done the cover of Time Magazine a couple years ago, gathering around 250 people that totally represent the spectrum of gun in America. I went in different cities to photograph them and interview them.

JR:

And I composed the image in a way, and they knew it, that it was a debate around the table. So if you see the image, you’ll see 250 people or 300 people all around like if they were in the same room debating together. And of course we had to photograph them on green screen and then compose it, but they knew they would end up in a mural where there’ll be people that they don’t agree with. Now, what happened after that is that you would think, okay, that’s easy because they don’t meet. Well when you gather in the same mural like white supremacists and Black Lives Matter, Black Guns Matter, people from the CIA, people who are hunters, people who lost close one because of guns, surgeon, mayors, everybody was in this mural. A lot for their ego sometime because they wanted to be on the cover of Time and a lot because they understood, okay, this is a powerful piece of art that could maybe help us communicate better. But everyone came with their own point of view.

JR:

The moment that those people started talking to each other was actually at the opening. We did a few openings in different museum and that the opening was the moment where each of those people were invited, but they were also invited to come at the opening, have a glass of champagne, come with your family. At those openings were the people that they’re not supposed to meet because they also came with the grandma, the grandson and the friends. And because they were there in the same room and they said, “Oh, I hate this guy,” but they say, “Let me hear what he actually say on the app,” And they would listen to this story.

JR:

And we noticed many times that those people then will start talking and realize, “Hey, I saw that you lost a close one and this should not happen. It’s not because I’m pro-gun that certain things,” and the conversation will happen and you would think this is impossible, and yet art create that bridge. So the technology helped that because carrying the stories, having them come to some place in the next step of the artwork. When you think the artwork is finished, that’s actually when the journey is beginning.

Charlie Melcher:

A lot of visual artists consider that the work should speak for itself, but you seem to be really fascinated in hearing the stories of your subjects and having that be part of the process, be part of the art. Why do you ask people to tell the stories and what role do stories really play, in your mind, in your work?

JR:

We all sometime would dream to have the courage to just go and tap on anyone’s shoulder in the street and ask them, but it’s a hard process. It’s just like people are afraid to go and talk to each other. It’s easier to do it behind the screen than facing each other. And so walking the street, seeing one of those murals and seeing a person clicking on it, it’s like an easy process to actually get out there and listen and see faces of the community.

JR:

Remember that this could happen in your neighborhood. Suddenly you recognize your neighbor, you’re like, “Oh, I never spoke to him or her, and then I’m seeing her on the [inaudible 00:18:33] mural. Let me click and see what she says.” And I think it’s very interesting to see that people, they just sometime would love to know more about someone, but it’s that extra step. And I think technology sometime do a great part in that to help you break those boundaries.

Charlie Melcher:

A polyvocal story is one that honors the many perspectives of a place rather than trying to tell a single official story. It feels to me that that’s what you’re doing here, empowering the community to tell their own stories. How do you hope to include a diverse community or attract a diverse community in each city and encourage them to tell their stories?

JR:

It’s never easy because many people saw things, pastings or art that inspired them, but they don’t feel like they could do it. So it always take one person in that community, in that city and say, “Hey, hey, wait, we can do this,” and that start it. And at first that person’s like, “Oh my God, I have no idea how we’re going to do this,” and then it’s like, “Okay, let me talk to my friend. Let me take the photo. I have a phone. Let me just do it with the phone,” and then realize that it’s so easy. Why there’s not more people doing it?

JR:

So sometime when I look, we have a map here at the studio where we see all the places in the world where we’ve sent posters, we realize, “Oh, okay, why is there no person in this country that have actually realized that they can do it, that it’s free, that they can be part of it?” And so that’s a long process. It’s like word of mouth. But our project is very fragile also because it’s not like a business model. If everybody go on the side and ask it for free, then suddenly we collapse the project.

JR:

Weirdly, the fact that people genuinely decide to pay. Half of the people say, “No, we’ll participate.” We say suggested donation for poster is, I don’t know, $8 or something. And then some people say, “Well, I could pay five or I could pay two,” or some people say, “Well, I could pay 20,” that pays for someone else that couldn’t pay. But if you say, “I can’t pay anything,” we’ll still send you. There’s no background check. And so that’s the beauty of it. It’s like you realize, okay, this project could stop anytime. It’s very organic, but it’s somehow surviving because people don’t understand the power of it.

Charlie Melcher:

Are you hoping that the collective group of stories that people leave, since they are so tagged and located to a particular place, you can’t see or hear these stories if you’re not in that place. They’re unlocked when you appear there with your phone. Do you hope that they’re going to create a collective portrait of that place?

JR:

Well, the beauty of it is that it do it because it collect those stories and then over the years, that’s what I see with Inside Out and the last 13 years is we have 500,000 people stories and statements and photos from around the world. And it’s like a mirror of society and of different communities around the world. And I know this new step with JR Reality will be that in a deeper way because you can really record your story.

JR:

So we’ve seen this even when I’ve done it in prison couple years ago in the maximum security prison in California. I’ve recorded the stories of the inmates, of the victims, of the guards, and their children also, from the inmates that are in prison listen. And some of them were not visiting their parents for decades, and they’re like, “Oh wow, I never heard my father speak that. I never had 40 minutes with him actually, to hear his story. And there I could just be at home and listen and make my own opinion.” And a lot of them told me that the biggest impact on the project is that they reconnected with their family, but also that the guards talk to them differently after because they also heard their story.

Charlie Melcher:

It’s a good comment about the power of personal narratives and the ability for stories to create empathy and connection.

JR:

Exactly.

Charlie Melcher:

And I’m sure that’s a big part of your having added this ability for everyone to leave their own stories in the app. You also mentioned just now another really important difference about this project than some of your others. Traditionally, you’ve worked with paper and glue and the elements weared away. These are temporal. They come down over time because of being outdoors. And this app is meant to be a kind of permanent time capsule that will stay and not be subject to the winds and the rains and the sun. How important is the permanence of this for you?

JR:

Well, most of my work, I’ve always been used to this ephemeral, and I’m fine with that because when you see it, you cannot unsee it. It’s just in your mind. You remember always that there were some portraits there. But of course at some point people will won’t see it. It’s just gone, and that’s fine. That’s why we document it, we share it, we have books and films. But with this, the stories can stay and they float there forever. And I think that’s important because it kind of leaves something that can outlive us and often that suddenly take a whole other dimension also in the way you share story rather than in the very moment it can also have a long-lasting impact.

Charlie Melcher:

I do wonder, having done a number of digital projects myself that get outdated as new operating systems come out and have to be maintained in a digital warehouse someplace on a server, are you thinking about that in terms of making sure it stays up for a long, long time?

JR:

That’s going to be a big question of course, because we see it with already our sites and the number of portraits we collect and the number of image that we have to collect becomes huge. So it’s a real question. It’s a real question. I don’t know if I have the exact answer for it today, but it’s definitely something as we’ll see how the app evolve and how many people participate, and also what’s the size of the file we keep, what’s necessary. We don’t need to have the highest files ever. And take that in consideration also that it’s there to float. We don’t need to print it, so we don’t need to the highest quality. And so that also I think will change big time, and Niantic is very good for that, for making sure that it’s the best quality with the lowest weight. And then the compression have evolved in an amazing way this last couple years.

Charlie Melcher:

I remember one of my favorite user generated collaborative projects on the internet was the Johnny Cash Project.

JR:

Oh, yeah.

Charlie Melcher:

That Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk did many years ago. It was so popular. I mean, really, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people contributed cells to create this music video homage to Johnny Cash. But it became an expensive thing for them to maintain and keep up. And if it weren’t for one particular company underwriting it, I think it was Radical Media paying to maintain that server, the whole thing would just have gone away and there would be no record whatsoever. So we think about digital being in a way timeless, but it also can be ephemeral too.

JR:

Exactly.

Charlie Melcher:

I think about your origins as a graffiti artist and the kind of in invisible nature of a graffiti artist. So you don’t want to get caught. You have to be a sleuth in doing it. And I feel like in this project, in this JR Reality project, you are also kind of hidden. It feels to me like you’re taking yourself out of it. Even the other projects where you have a lot of people collaborating and contributing, you still were kind of the pied piper. You’re still the leader of the pack, if you will, directing to some degree. And yet here it feels like you are truly kind of becoming invisible in this. You’re really handing it over to the collaborators and stepping out. Are you trying to become invisible in the art projects you lead?

JR:

Yeah, that’s a really good point. You’re right. That’s exactly it. If you think of when I was 14, 15, I was writing my name on wall to say, “I’m here. I exist.”

Charlie Melcher:

Right.

JR:

But then I flipped that by taking people portraits and to say, “They’re here. They exist.” And then I started traveling around the world in communities, and as I would paste their portraits, they would help me to do it. And I was like, “Oh wow, that’s even more powerful.” Then when I started Inside Out, I’m saying, “Let me see. If I don’t go, will people still do it?”

JR:

And I realized, yes, not only they’ll do it, but it’ll be even more powerful that they did it without me because I have nothing to do in their struggle. And if I can help, great. But the truth is it’s much more powerful that it comes from the community directly. And so the more the years pass all the way to this project, the more I try to disappear behind the project. So it’s a very good point you have there because very discreetly, that’s what I’m doing,

Charlie Melcher:

Your work feels to me to be incredibly life-affirming, optimistic, even regenerative. Can you heal the world with paper and glue and pixels and geotags?

JR:

My responsibility is to believe in it. And I had enough time where I saw it and proved it, actually, with data and numbers. In prison, half of the inmates I had in the groups that I took care of got freed after that and they had life in prison. And so I’ve seen changes, impact in Brazil and around the world. So yes.

JR:

One of my first book was called Can Art Change the World? And I have a duty to stay not only optimist, but almost utopist because as an artist, we have to dream of something that is even non-conceivable. And sometimes it actually works and that’s the beauty of it. But this why I wake up every day. I don’t really have a choice. And the good thing, and the good news is actually I see signs every day that shows me that it have an impact. So I’m like, “Wow,” and that’s why we take this further.

Charlie Melcher:

I think for me, the reason it feels so optimistic and so helpful for the world today as these technologies help in a way or contribute to the polarization in our world, I feel that your statement is that art is the anecdote to that. Art is the thing that actually helps to bring people together. The process of making. As you say, the art is in the process. So by empowering hopefully hundreds of thousands or millions of people to realize that their artists, that their stories matter, that they can create and share. That in doing that, it will be this thing that helps to pull people back to realize that our humanity is shared. What we have in common is manyfolds greater than what separates us.

JR:

Exactly. And sometime it’s very little things that are here to remind us that it’s not a huge bridge to cross. It’s just talking to each other and then listening each other’s stories. And I’ll just walk throughout that path as much as I can. And so I know technology can also divide us and is doing it. And so I don’t think that we should go against technology, but we should use it in a very specific way to make sure it also help us we connect each other.

Charlie Melcher:

Brother, thank you for sharing your story with me today.

JR:

Thank you. Very special.

Charlie Melcher:

It’s great to be connected.

JR:

Very special. Thank you for working so hard on making this question very relevant and a fascinating conversation.

Charlie Melcher:

My sincere thanks to JR and to the team at Superblue. To learn more about JR Reality and download the app, please see the links in the episode’s description.

Charlie Melcher:

Thank you as well for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider subscribing to the FoST podcast and leaving us a kind review wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can learn more about our other content and become part of the FoST family by signing up for our free monthly newsletter at fost.org.

Charlie Melcher:

The FoST podcast is produced by Melcher Media in collaboration with our talented production partner Charts and Leisure. I hope to see you again soon for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Until then, please be safe, stay strong, and story on.