NYC To Collect Tax On Times Square Billboard Ads

VIA: Media Post News

New York City is dusting off an old tax law and applying it to billboard advertisers in Times Square for the first time in decades, in a move that will raise at least $18 million for the city. The city government said it will begin collecting a 6% commercial rent tax on 22 companies that advertise on outdoor signs, mostly concentrated in New York’s iconic Times Square, reported the New York Post. More [HERE]

Cleveland Indians want to put ads where fans can see them

VIA Engadget

Advertisers and sponsors are extremely valuable to all professional sports teams, and thus it is very important to keep them engaged with the fans. In an effort to make this happen, the Cleveland Indians recently partnered with Tobii, a maker of eye-tracking glasses, to conduct a study that could determine what exactly folks look at throughout their time at Progressive Field. The MLB team says it gave 47 fans a pair of Tobii Glasses to use during the span of three days, which were worn as they watched games from various seating areas at its ballpark. Essentially, using the Tobii Insight research program as the basis, the goal was to see how much time participants spent looking at the main scoreboard and other dynamic signage. In theory, this would detect just how valuable certain locations are inside the stadium -- so, the easier it is for you spot it, the more it could potentially cost for a company to put an ad there.  More [HERE]

258 Calls Out The Industry With This Interactive Billboard

Just got this very nice email from 258 in the UK. Its heartening to see the PublicAdCampaign project influencing people around the world as it is a labor of love.

Hey Jordan,

I don’t know if you take submissions for your blog but I thought I would email you over the piece of work I have just completed now I have some better documentation of it in action and very nearly almost put it on their blog.

The billboard appears blank at first but is user activated, as you walk past the piece, sensors are triggered and turn lights on one by one revealing a hidden word, WANKERS, my interpretation on what the bosses of these outdoor advertising companies think of us, the people who have to use this space without ever having had any say if advertising was ok. If we wish to not be exposed to adverts on the internet, tv or radio then we can stop using these things, we cannot however stop using public space and if we try to put our own messages in that space we are the ones ridiculed.

Anyway thanks for taking the time to read this as you know i'm a big fan of what you do and the message/knowledge public ad campaign spreads. Below is a link to my site & a link to a short video of the billboard in action (a longer version is set to follow). 

Kind Regards 258

More from 258 [HERE]

Strip Box By Farewell

New work by Farewell  VIA: Vandalog

AK - Geometrical Decollage in Turin Italy

An artist named AK out of Turin, Italy just sent me this video. By first covering the ad and then removing parts of the top layer, AK uses the billboard content to create a simple pattern that upon closer inspection reveals the ad takeover which made it. Enjoy!

The Empty-Project Keeps the Conversation Going in Madrid

Pedro Sega sent over this little blurb about The Empty-Project, a series of ongoing ad takeovers on the streets of Madrid. What I love about The Empty-Project is that it is an ongoing conversation that anyone can get involved in just by contacting the organizers. The text below is a brutal Google translation from the original Spanish text. I would suggest visiting the Empty-Project website [HERE]

VIA: Le Cool

Despite its name, Empty Project is a project all but empty. This name, however, serves to bring together, under one umbrella, a series of ephemeral interventions by different public spaces in Madrid. They collaborate artists related to urban art, illustration, photography, music and poetry and all of them are worth the paper as support for expressing any criticism. The project began in February with the interventions of artist Pedro Sega (which made ​​the cover of our newsletter a few months ago) in four shelters in central Madrid and the idea is to continue to live on the proposals to be them coming from now. If you are an artist or you're not but you have a protest proposal you'd like to see exposed in the streets of Madrid, do not hesitate to write to team Empty Project, which will be responsible for carrying out the most transgressive. Untranslated original [HERE]

Full Car Domination on the L by YouTube

These full car train dominations are part of CBS Outdoor and the MTA trying "new and innovative ways to create alternative advertising revenue streams". Not only is the entire L-train wrapped top to bottom with YouTube advertising, but every ad within each car is also for the same YouTube campaign. The result is an overwhelming experience which is simply unavoidable, that being exactly the point.

Ultimately these are stunts, infrequently popping up once in a blue moon when a company has a particularly egregious amount of money to spend on a campaign they are pushing harder than most. They confirm that for the right price, pretty much any space in the city is for sale, but to what ends. The notion that a few hundred thousand dollars, or whatever it cost YouTube to pull off this monstrosity, will help the MTA in any real or noticeable way is preposterous. With an annual operating budget in the tens of billions of dollars, advertising revenue contributions to the MTA system are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. In fact the removal of every single ad within the entire MTA system would cost riders a mere 2.5 pennies per ride, or thereabouts.

Brandalism 2014 Hits the UK Again - A Movement Grows

First, stop what you are doing and go to the Brandalism website [HERE]. Once you have visited the site, come back for my thoughts on this incredible project and the implications of a larger growing social movement with an eye on our public spaces, and the health of our communities. 

Just yesterday, the world citizens over at the Brandalism project carried out the largest advertising takeover project ever! With 40 participating artists, they took over 365 bus shelter and freestanding advertising spaces in 10 UK cities, all over the course of 2 days. This was a massive undertaking that clearly took months of planning and the dedication of a huge number of participants, not to mention the full time work of several core organizers. The sheer scale of their action demands a conversation about who our public media infrastructure is serving and how it might be better used, a sentiment we share over here at PublicAdCampaign. Instead of repeating familiar grievances in this post, we suggest you take a look at the amazing documentation and political insights gathered on the Brandalism website so we can take this opportunity to talk about what continued large scale civil disobedience means for this growing movement. 

John Fekner and Jordan Seiler
Lately, I have been amazed at the sheer number of projects and activities that are taking place around the anti-advertising movement. Brandalism in the UK and The Empty Project in Madrid continue a history of large scale civil disobedience, full scale gallery exhibitions from Vermibus, OX, BR1 and Mobstr show a growing movement of dedicated artists, activists in Australia are getting themselves arrested for a chance to challenge the status quo, urban planners in LA taking notes on how to better serve the community, undergraduate classes at our major universities are engaging the anti-advertising conversation, even our own city governments seem to be stepping up and policing our streets. All this adds up to a community trying to understand our relationship to corporate media driven public spaces, and fight for what is right. No longer does this seem like the work of a few crazy street artists. The question is what are our next steps and how do we begin to realize some of our demands in light of this growing momentum? 
The first step is to continue coordinated actions like the Brandalism project and any other public protests which help make this issue visible. Apathy towards the negative role outdoor advertising plays in our lives, along with a long tradition of public space ownership by corporate media, has made this issue difficult for people to take seriously. It is important that we remain committed to continued disruptions so that the cause remains on the forefront of our collective conscience. 
The second step is using the attention these projects get to teach larger communities about issues beyond aesthetics. Advertising has a profound effect on our collective interests, it sculpts our behaviors, and thus has direct impacts on our environment as well. This issue is about understanding how the images that surround us shape who we are. It is about reclaiming control of the public spaces that define us and in the process gaining more control over the systems which govern us. 
The third step is to pressure our local governments to act on our behalf and impose the will of the public. Most large cities have some department which is tasked with controlling outdoor advertising. in NYC it is the Department of Buildings. These departments are highly understaffed and likely not very motivated to control advertisings persistent encroachment on our shared public spaces by what seems like an apathetic public. Email your local representatives, find out who is responsible for policing advertising, and make your presence known.
The last step is to remain vigilante against false equivalencies. With a growing movement of people demanding advertising's removal from public space, outdoor advertisers will need to take drastic steps to persuade the public that they are ultimately acting in the public's interest. These will come in the form of small and large "donations" of space and random acts of altruism. There are plenty of examples of these public outreach programs masquerading as public art projects but in the end all they do is serve to concretize a public space whose visual imagery is curated by outdoor advertising corporations and the large for profit businesses that pay them to promote thier private messages. 

A Billboard That Purifies the Air Around It

My only question is why does this have to be a billboard?

VIA: The Atlantic Cities

Last year, scientists at University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Peru came up with an ingenious billboard that produced drinkable water. Now they’re at it again, this time giving billboards a different superpower: the ability to purify surrounding air. More [HERE]

Technically...This Is Not Outdoor Advertising

NPA outdoor, now Contest Promotions, once operated hundreds of street level billboards like this all over NYC. It turned out the advertising was illegal and public pressure, in addition to the valiant efforts of a dedicated Sign Enforcement unit in NY, brought down a lions share of the illegal signage. The company did not go without a fight and imposed a ludicrous business model to side step long standing NYC signage laws. More info on this can be found buried in this site, searchable using the post labels, but suffice to say NYC wasn't having it. Large penalties were imposed and eventually the company withdrew from NY almost entirely. 

And yet a few remaining signs still exist. Why?

Outdoor advertising in NY, or 3rd party signage, must obtain the proper permit in order to be legally placed in public space. We do this to mitigate what would surely be an overwhelming glut of signage, turning our streets into a carnival of commercial messages. In many ways, these laws are a compromise between the public and commercial interests. Commerce demands access to our city streets in order to pedal its wares, and has the dollars on hand to be very persuasive. The public, understanding the detrimental effects of commercial messaging on our collective psyche, attempts to resist the pull of money by enacting laws which prohibit the placement and amount of signage that can exist. It is a delicate balance that is constantly being negotiated by both parties. 

This negotiation happens for one reason and one reason only and that is that the public has usurped private property owners right to do whatever they want with thier property, an entirely un-capitalist way to operate given how much we revere private property and its relationship to democracy. We have done this by collectively agreeing that the outer walls of a building, despite being owned by an individual, are not entirely private. These walls, facing into the public, have an effect on all of us and are therefore thier use can be controlled with the public's interest in mind. This is a lot like how our environmental protections prevent you from using your private property to dispose of toxic waste, knowing that this type of private property usage has a negative effect on us all. 

So why is this sign still up despite all the other illegal Contest Promotions signs being taken down? Outdoor advertising and the laws which we have enacted to police its presence, only apply to signage which is on the outside of a buildings property line. Technically this makes sense, prohibiting the public and Sign Enforcement Units in NY from interfering with a landlords right to do what he wants with the inside of his building or other things which have no effect on the public citizen as a whole. This sign, technically falls within the buildings property line and is therefore un policeable despite functioning like any other sign affixed outside of the buildings property line. The result is a tiny loophole which allows unscrupulous outdoor advertising companies and landlords to shirk the law and continue to operate illegal signage in our city. What a sham.

Global Liberal Media Please Gets Out During The Day

Global Liberal Media Please is a campaign run by Kyle Magee out of Australia. The campaign demands an advertising free public space with the understanding that a true democracy can only exist with a democratic media system from which the citizens of that democracy might make informed and unbiased decisions. In a world where our media systems (and in this case specifically that media system which monopolizes public space) are run multinational corporations that make money from commercial advertising, democratic curation of those spaces doesn't seem likely. This leaves the promise of democracy far out of reach as our decisions about how to best serve our collective interests are made using the information we get from a commercially driven media system.

It is with this in mind that Kyle protests public advertising networks by "vandalizing" them in broad daylight. This is done with the intention of getting arrested, allowing him to take his grievances directly to the courts. This may sound a bit mental, and once you have read some of Kyle's musings on his adventures, it seems like he is well aware. And yet Kyle seems to be soldiering on, remaining determined to air his grievances. Why would someone continue to get arrested repeatedly for the same crime? For Kyle, this is in fact a cause worth getting arrested for, and I would tend to agree. the depth of his criticism is real, and the effects of using our public messaging systems to support private commercial interests are also real.

What Kyle's outrageous action demands, is that we treat this issue with the level of importance it deserves. Standing up for the destruction of our environment due to over consumption is an issue worth our full attention, as is the degradation of our collective social behavior as advertising implores us to focus on our personal needs rather than those of the community. These are real issues that advertising plays a huge role in perpetuating, being the fuel which keeps the engine of consumption always humming, and the repetitive drum that focuses us inward. To adress these massive issues we must confront our relationship to our vast media systems in a real and meaningful way. Kyle's work begs us to realize this fact and take the first steps by banning outdoor advertising in our most public of spaces.

Take the time to go through Kyle's documentation of his ongoing efforts [HERE]

You Might Call It A Crisis But It's Silence To Me

Filippo Minelli is not a takeover artist but the video above entitled "You might call it crisis but it's silence to me" is a delightful piece uses the method for fantastic results. I could watch this for hours or have as a dedicated video installation in my home. Presumably the artist himself dances in front of billboards which have been painted or pasted grey and light blue, obscuring thier content. Given the title, his subversive exuberance leaves me smiling and uplifted in a way I am unused to art making me feel. Enjoy!

RFP To Revamp NYC Payphone Infrastructure For The Digital Age

this RFP from the NYC DoITT and found out there are big changes to the NYC Pay phone landscape finally making it down the pipes. I suggest taking a full look at the RFP below as there are good things for the city and bad. For instance a good thing is more than 50% of revenue and 5% of total advertising space must be given to the city, which I believe is up from previous arrangements made with Titan media and the other 9 companies that still retain contracts. In fact those contracts end this October, which is why this RFP is coming out now. A not so good thing about this request is that it requires the pay phone infrastructure to grow so that WiFi connectivity can blanket the city more uniformly than pay phone infrastructure does. With this growth comes more advertising and the number and ubiquity of advertising on our streets will grow due to this effort.

 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

NEW YORK, NY 10007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 1, 2014

CONTACT: pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov, (212) 788-2958

No. 193

       NEW YORK CITY ISSUES REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS TO BUILD

CITYWIDE WI-FI NETWORK AND STATE-OF-THE-ART INFORMATION HUBS

New public communication points to be distributed across the five boroughs to provide free Wi-Fi, free calling to 911 and 311, and at least $17.5 million in annual city revenue

NEW YORK—New York City, through its Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the creation of a robust, citywide network of Internet hotspots that will constitute one of the largest free Wi-Fi networks in the country, greatly increasing access to broadband connectivity across the five boroughs. By replacing the aging network of public pay telephones with state-of-the-art public connection points, the city aims to transform the physical streetscape—and New Yorkers’ access to information—while also creating new local jobs for the development, servicing and maintenance of the structures.

“This administration has committed to making New York City work better for every community, and this RFP for free outdoor Wi-Fi is a down payment on that promise,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “For years, the question was, ‘What to do with payphones?’ and now we have an answer. By using a historic part of New York’s street fabric, we can significantly enhance public availability of increasingly-vital broadband access, invite new and innovative digital services, and increase revenue to the city—all at absolutely no cost to taxpayers.”

“The digital age holds great potential to better deliver services, and by reimaging 20^th Century payphones as 21^st Century connection points, we’re making broadband access more equitable and accessible to every New Yorker, said Counsel to the Mayor, Maya Wiley. “DoITT is leading the way for a more wired city. I commend the agency for its work on this initiative, as well as the hundreds of individuals from across the city and country that have provided valuable feedback as we crafted this solicitation.”

Full RFP download [HERE]

Tsuenhisha Kimura The Origin of Illusions 1973-1975

This image was taken from a wonderful little Tumblr site called Your Art Here. 

Tsuenhisha Kimura: The Origin of Illusions 1973-1975