UnConvention yard-sign contest: And the winners are...

The votes in The UnConvention's "My Yard, Our Message" project have been tallied --nearly 1,000 people casting more than 24,000 votes -- and the winners are in. While I'm sorry to say the "Dick Cheney Shot a Guy in the Face" yard sign is not among the 50 signs that'll be produced and distributed in the neighborhooods near the Republican National Convention site in St. Paul, the final selection has some strong entries.

The top vote-getter, receiving 130 votes, was Teri Kwant's sign, "I'm for preemptive peace. Others making the cut: "Give a shit" by "Liza Minelli" (or, perchance, Liza Minelli?); David Brynestad's "My redneck, sexist, gun-toting, racist brother-in-law is voting" ("Are you?"); and Joseph Hughes' simple sign that shows a checkbox with the first of two options marked: hope and fear.

The 50 designs will be distributed in yards in St. Paul's Dayton's Bluff, St. Paul's West Side and Minneapolis' Seward neighborhoods. But if you don't live in those communities, you can still plant one in your yard: $20 gets one delivered to your door. Once you do, you can add your sign to a Google Maps application that pinpoints where they end up.

Here's all 50 winners:

Three days left to submit RNC yard signs!

You've only got three days to submit yard signs for the UnConvention's My Yard, Our Message project, held in conjunction with the Republican National Convention. Looks like there are some good entries mixed in among the simply awful ones (this one falls under good concept, so-so design), so submit some and give me something to vote for when public ranking begins on Tuesday.

Stake a claim on democracy. In yer yard.

A cacophony of voices and a one-(wo)man-one-vote policy on which messages get amplified: Sounds like the Republican National Convention, right? Not really.

As a stark counterpoint to the "scripted democracy" of this fall's GOP nominating convention, a project by mnartists.org, the Walker Art Center and the UnConvention is inviting people of all political stripes and artistic abilities to create yard signs to coincide with the RNC -- and, fittingly, the 50 designs getting the most online votes will be produced and distributed around the Twin Cities and near the convention site.

Visitors to the My Yard, Our Message site can submit designs by June 30; then open voting will be held from July 1-27.

Don't want to leave the fate of your design in the hands of we, the people? For $20 bucks, the project will produce and deliver a one-off of your design.

Featured: "Ugly Partisanship" by Emmet Byrne; "Convention" by Andy Pressman; "Groove" by Emmet Byrne; "Now or Never" by David Barawski

Bits: 04.22.09

Cezary Bodzianowski: “Great Gatsby”, Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), Tel Aviv, 2009

• Exhibition: Playing the City, now through May 6 in Frankfurt.

• A trailer for the 25th anniversary edition of Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant's book, Subway Art.

• The New York Times highlights Minneapolis College of Art and Design students as a "community of technical artists who build bikes from new and leftover parts, not only to save money but to create something of pride." Via @tlcminnesota.

• Congratulations to Justin Heideman and the Walker new media staff: their RNC-themed My Yard Our Message project -- much blogged right here -- won best of the web at Museums and the Web 2009 in the innovation category. Here's a recap of the conference.

• Kottke has links to original scripts from HBO's The Wire, plus writer David Simon's original pitch for the show. And Nieman Journalism Lab does a video interview with Simon about whether newspapers can learn how to survive by copying HBO.

• Homewood Studios in North Minneapolis is opening an exhibition of works by Peyton, co-founder of the urban art center Juxtaposition, tomorrow night, April 23. While art is Peyton's first love, his main job at the moment is as a professional kickboxer: On May 1, he's fighting for the title of U.S. light welterweight champion.

• Congrats to Art of This for winning "Best Art Gallery" in City Pages' Best of the Twin Cities.

• Source material: The Bush administration's secret memos about extreme interrogation techniques.

Best political sign

Update: Unfortunately, The UnConvention has yanked the sign above from the contest for being too overtly partisan. (Huh? Dick Cheney's not running and, well, he did shoot a guy in the face with a shotgun.) If you go directly to the sign, which doesn't appear in the regular voting section, you can still vote, though.

Voting for The UnConvention's My Yard Our Message project starts tomorrow. Top vote-getters -- like Paul Wenzel's, above? -- will be produced and distributed near the Republican National Convention site during the nominating convention. Anyone can vote anytime throughout July.