Art project takes anti-smartphone campaign to Vienna

Black-and-white posters carrying slogans such as “Spritzer instead of smartphone” and “Life instead of likes” have appeared in Vienna’s city centre, ORF reports. The messages, attached to street poles with tape, come from the Radical Anti Smartphone Front, or RASF, an art project.

After campaigns in London and Brussels, the group is now carrying out what it calls “reinforced actions” in Vienna. Despite its dramatic name, it poses no threat to mobile phone shops or Apple stores, said initiator Benno Flügel.

“It is an art project that above all aims to raise awareness,” Flügel said. The group criticises excessive smartphone and social media use, arguing that constant digital presence is displacing personal encounters, encouraging self-promotion and contributing to social division.

Flügel said a person who had fallen into a coma in the 1980s and woke up today might think that “a plague had broken out that had infected our public spaces to the last corner, because everywhere and on every corner people only stare into their electronic mirrors.”

The RASF is calling for greater use of “algorithm-free spaces” such as libraries, cinemas, museums and bars. It says a handful of friends with whom people can laugh, cry and discuss the important things in life is more valuable than a crowd of Facebook subscribers or Instagram followers.

Flügel said the message had struck a chord, with so many positive emails from Vienna that he could establish a local chapter. Nevertheless, the Radical Anti Smartphone Front will remain a purely artistic project. People can still join, he said: “Delete your social media accounts.”