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)

PUBLIC SPACE

non-commercial public spaces are disappearing from use. . .big boxes and parking lots are our social parks now, where we brush up against each other in person. now we create public spaces online. I want to know. . . what the architecture of Facebook really looks like ?

I was invited to participate in an architecture critique recently. the students were all redesigning a local I.M.Pei building as a museum of money. (very clever assignment by professor Tim Nichols. this historic building is only 2 stories high on a block greedy for skyscrapers. this is prime real estate. small buildings waste space that could be making money. it stands just around the corner from the 615 building, which they killed two years ago, and the space still sits empty.) The design I remember the most was from a very shy young korean student. in her model, she removed the bottom floor of the building, and preserved the top as is. . . and then, she put an empty space for temporary open markets on the first floor. She made a simple yet lovely shady piazza! A place I would love to see come to fruition, especially on that corner which has dramatic spatial choreography.

But from what I can see, the developers will collaborate with I.M.Pei himself to deface his own building into a mixed use, and of course "green" mega-building. They intent to preserve "a portion" of the original. well, of course I'm skeptical. . .but I guess one can't be too critical of any attempts at preservation at this point. . . . . . . .