When the Ads Cease to Exist, the Community Fills in the Blanks

PublicAdCampaign readers will know that one of my issues with outdoor advertising is that it monopolizes public space as it engulfs ever more territory in an effort to become the predominant message in our public environment. This quest for more and more real estate not only overwhelms our visual environment but places a high value on the walls of our city by monetizing each surface with a potential for ad revenue. The result is a lack of public usage of public space in what becomes a thoroughly commercial environment. 

The series of three images presented in this post serve as a nice example of what we might come to expect if we remove the ever present billboard image and think of how we might like to collectively curate the spaces that we share. (While I am obviously a fan of public murals, I would also like to say that it is my hope that we think of public curation in much broader terms than the mural and use our shared public walls to adress all forms of community needs, including the artistic.)

Illegal NPA street level billboard 2009

 Illegal billboard removal 01-12

Current image as of 05-17-13