BILLBOARDS

billboards are our most common form of public art. and yet advertising hoards up all the billboard space for the purpose of selling things. its ironic how intolerant people are of public art (both official and unofficial kinds). . .yet the public seems completely ok with billboards everywhere.

my friend evan calls them floating walls. (when you endeavor to build one, you must calculate the wind's force on it) . .a good way to think of them.

in some earlier comments I was asked what kind of billboard I would make, if I had the chance. . .well I did have the chance, recently thanks to louis corrigan. I built a small billboard (12'x12') up on my house . . .and so far my neighbors have tolerated it. . .in fact many say they enjoy seeing it. but I was careful, not to make an advertizement. I made a promise to never put any words on it. instead I put a carefully chosen found image. . . .it's quite ambiguous, but still political.

but I do think the best billboards are the old ones, empty or in a state of disarray. before long they will all be video screens, flashing and making noise. . .and these will be relics.

pictured here is a text suggestion from reader, adam bruneau: he thought a billboard should say, "don't buy anything."

EMPTY SIGNAGE. . .

I've been engaged in an interesting online discussion among empty sign enthusiasts. . .we've been theorizing about their ubiquity and their deeper meanings. . . .

(pictured here is an old piece of art that DANIEL OSBORNE gave me. . .I glued it into my notebook (2006?) and added a random caption).

here are some links and ideas:

-DELETE art project, suggested by HERMANN ZSCHIEGNER
-architect TIM NICHOLS' collection of empty sign photos

-HIROSHI SUGIMOTO's theatre photos
-ED RUSCHA!


A FEW IDEAS ABOUT EMPTY SIGNS:

-why we do love these empty signs so much? Why does the absence of information have such an appeal?
Maybe because the empty billboard is a sign reduced to a mere signifier, pointing only to its own existence. A classic ready-made. And our "avantgarde trained minds" really respond to that. Can we ever overcome Duchamp? Should we? (hz)

-empty signage indeed appeals to our inner duchampian aesthetics, but it may also appeal to our secret desire for emptiness/ moments of visual rest in our urban/suburban world, smothered in advertising. (kt)

-those empty signs harken to our endtime fantasies. . .evidence that the machine is falling apart. . . the floating walls are left unmanned. (kt)

-there's also that utopian staple (for some anyway): a symbolic tabula rasa --the iconic empty billboard. a blank space at 48' wide. . .the ultimate chance to start the message over. (kt)