Winners & Shortlists

THE UNFAPPENING

TitleTHE UNFAPPENING
BrandARTBOX
Product/ServiceART AGENCY
Category F02. RESPONSE/REAL-TIME ACTIVITY
Entrant Company RED URBAN Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Advertising Agency RED URBAN Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Credits
Name Company Position
Robin Meekel Red Urban Amsterdam Creative
Patrick Van Haperen Red Urban Amsterdam Creative
Max Remkes Red Urban Amsterdam Developer

Creative Execution

Immediately after The Fappening had occurred, we provided international visual artists, represented by art agency Artbox, with a simple task: to cover up the nude pictures in a decent way, using their own style and signature. As soon as we had enough cover-up artworks to fill a gallery, we launched theunfappening.com. Our curated digital gallery grew every day with more and more artworks as increasing numbers of people visited the site. We also received multiple submissions from other artists which we displayed once they had been curated.

The UNfappening quickly became more viral than The Fappening itself. The project attracted over 500.000 visitors, was mentioned in 214 media publications (media value: €10.000.000), buzzed around on social media and was picked up by many social influencers including ‘Unofficial: Banksy’. We’ve created an art movement that has taken the power away from those behind the leaks and redirected it towards celebrating the victims involved in the form of works of art. As a result, Artbox and their artists have been launched onto the global ‘creative industry’ map and they have received 60% more traffic to their company website.

On 31 August, hundreds of private nude celebrity pictures were leaked onto the web by hackers. The Internet dubbed this event ‘The Fappening’. It triggered a global media hype in relation to security, privacy and nudity. We were against this invasion of privacy, but we couldn’t prevent these pictures from being distributed, so we asked ourselves: how could we turn this attention to something more deserving? We decided to newsjack this event by ‘covering up’ the nudity with art to give the Internet something beautiful that everyone could enjoy. So we initiated ‘The UNfappening’: showcasing the works of artists represented by art agency Artbox on the leaked pictures. It generated a massive and gratuitous audience for their work. All artworks were displayed in a digital gallery on the UNfappening website and changed the way in which the nudes were interpreted: some intriguing, some clever and some just plain funny.