Chuck Agency / Seen Outdoor has reached the new low.

Recently I have been getting lots of emails regarding the increased and aggressive wild posting campaigns happening around NYC. Here is a good one I think you should know about.

Chuck Agency / Seen Outdoor has reached the new low.

Mark Samsonovich created a project he called Public Art Campaign, "Love is teletpathic", and while he was taking photographs of the installation, Chuck Agency's Dave Porter ripped down his posters at 4th & 10th. And Porter proceeded to tell Mark to "Go FUCK himself and these were his walls!". Dave Porter previously worked for NPA.

They say they use permitted dedicated sites but they have no permits. They create agreements under Seen Outdoor with some of the landlords and sell them under the Chuck Agency name, Jay Heleva is the president of Chuck Agency.

Mark Samsonovich project: www.loveistelepathic.com

 More Seen Outdoor ruining public art. The Street Art of Bushwick Collective Is Disappearing Under Billboards | Bushwick Daily: http://bushwickdaily.com/2015/06/the-street-art-of-bushwick-collective-is-disappearing-under-billboards/#.VZMyoP1glis.twitter

Attached: A .pdf of Chuck's 'dedicated lease locations'. (You can ask and they'll send you the same thing) Download [HERE]

I Call It Progress

You might not think this is progress, but I do. Once the ads go away, what comes next is up to us.

Without Advertising, the Walls Are Ours Again.

I have always thought that advertising, with its interest in monopolizing public dialogue, and thus its tendency to monopolize public spaces, prevented our city from a proliferation of locally derived artworks. After Contest Promotions' (formerly NPA Outdoor) license to operate was revoked in NYC, hundreds of street level advertising signs were removed. The photo above is just one example of artwork filling the hole left after advertising disappears, and proof of what I think is advertisings role in the degradation of the shared common experience of our public spaces.

This is just one of many examples and I will try to remember to snap more photos on my travels about the city.

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.

Getting the Short End of the Stick - Laboring for Corporate Media in Public Space

I took the picture above because I noticed that after many years, an illegal billboard that once occupied this wall had finally been removed. It was, like hundreds of others around the city, operated by a company called NPA outdoor. PublicAdCampaign, along with the help of hundreds of other NYC residents, had challenged the legitimacy of these ads by painting them white and then covering them with public media in a civil disobedience project called NYSAT some years back. This action was only made possible by the fact that we had discovered that NPA was operating their locations illegally, never having obtained the appropriate permitting from the city of NY. Ultimately, this fact misconstrued the projects intentions in a way that I have never fully addressed, but as you can imagine, our actions were seen as anti-illegal advertising. illegal or not, our intentions were to question corporate media's supremacy in our shared public spaces and gain political agency in the process. The fact that these advertisements were illegal only made it easier to convince average individuals to take up arms against them with a sense of entitlement, instead of reservation. Private property boundaries tend to be incredibly effective invisible barriers, but if those boundaries are imposed illegally, barriers become invitations. 

In the end, the focus on illegal advertising was disconcerting and we did not repeat this same mistake in the subsequent MaSAT and ToSAT projects. In Toronto we attacked both legal and illegal advertising equally, hoping for better public understanding of our larger grievances against a public media environment monopolized by corporate media. On some level this worked, and the discussion moved from the illegality of the advertising, to what we had replaced the corporate imagery with. To critics, it seemed we were now arguing for the replacement of ads with our artistic endeavors. As it were, those willing to participate in the illegal occupation of private property for a political statement about the current public media landscape, happened to be left wing nuts and artist types. But the point was not lost on us and the final large scale disobedience project in Madrid removed this ambiguity. Participants in Madrid were asked to simply submit text of their choosing. It was this final removal of individual identity that made clear our demands for a reevaluation of who has, and should have access to our shared public media environment. 

While the first two SAT projects failed to be clear about what we were all up in arms about, the unintended demands that they suggested were legitimate, if only to a small demographic. In NY people were pissed off that illegal advertising was taking advantage of public space, making money while not playing by the rules. People got upset about it and it would seem by the timeline of city enforcement, that the cities own action against this company was in some part fueled by the injustice we had help reveal. In Toronto, those concerned with public arts programming argued for our re-appropriation as a meaningful request for public arts opportunities in the face of huge corporate media initiatives. This may not have been our intended goal, but citizens rallied around these interpretations. I have for a long time wondered what other injustice gleaned from these types of actions, could reach a larger demographic than illegality or the right to public art, while allowing our criticism to remain about corporate medias dominance of public space more generally. 

Since these projects happened several years ago, I have read a lot about media literacy and media education in an attempt to understand my gut feeling that a public media landscape, monopolized by a corporate agenda, is problematic for our public environment and our democracy in general. I recently finished a book called "The Spectacle of Accumulation: essays in culture, media, and politics" which gave me new insights into how we might rally a larger public constituency against public media monopolies. Unbeknownst to me until now, we are all laboring unintentionally for outdoor media companies every time I step onto the city streets. It is this extraction of value from our own visual labor that we can all rally against by demanding compensation from those who benefit from its use. 

Overly simply put, media corporations make their money by selling an audience to companies who wish to reach those audiences with goods and services. Cable television, movie production houses, news outlets and all other media providers remain economically viable by increasing their audience size, or by targeting micro audiences, both of which are of value to corporations with products to sell. In the case of TV, it is well accepted that the "cost" of television is the watching of commercials. Corporations buy advertising space which funds the production of programming with the understanding that you will consume those messages and in the process the products associated with them. Cost analysis has made this process quite refined and depending on the audience being offered, and the scope of their purchasing power, corporations are willing to pay very specific amounts of money for your attention. The value of your viewing labor has a very specific price tag. 

If we accept this media support model, our next question should be how much does it cost to produce a specific piece of media so that we can determine how much of our attention, or labor must be given to commercials to make that programs production economically sound. It is here that we begin to see our attention, or our labor, beginning to be exploited. Like all capitalist endeavors, the media provider takes more value from your labor than it gives back in programming, or in wages as with other more traditional capitalist ventures. This really isnt anything new to most people, particularly when speaking about television. We know we get the short end of the stick when we are forced to watch 32, 15 second commercials for every 22 minutes of content we get in return. In fact we might pay extra money for cable channels which dont have advertising, preferring to pay for our content instead of to labor for it. However destructive this model might be to a democratic media environment, it is one we have come to accept as a society, for better or worse. 

What I find most interesting is that this same model of labor value extraction can be applied to public space where we are less inclined to see the personal benefits of our laboring for media companies that control our visual environment. Take for example, NPA outdoor, the illegally operating billboard company first targeted in the original NYSAT project. This company occupied a large amount of public space and sold that space to advertisers on the auspices that you would labor for them by paying attention to the messages without any compensation in return. Billboards and other non infrastructure related advertising venues operate under the same expectations, their right to exploit your attentions value is determined by their simple ability to pay for real estate within public view. Many other outdoor advertising companies at least attempt to disguise their labor value extraction by providing payphone service, or bus shelters, or other infrastructure related services which benefit the public generally. That said, like all other capitalist endeavors, they too extract far more value from your labor than is needed to keep said infrastructure operational. 

As PublicAdCampaign continues to adress issues of public media inequality and the resulting problems that arise for our public life and democracy, it is this extraction of surplus viewing power that we can all take issue with. We might be willing to overlook our excessive donation of labor to the entertainment industry or media venues which are less crucial to our lives, but public space is uniquely important to our democracy and at the same time an inescapable part of our lives. It is not a service being offered but a integral part of our daily existence. To me it is an extension of our homes and a physical  representation of our collective identity. To ask that we labor for corporations with very private concerns when traversing this public landscape is very different than asking us to labor for something less integral to our existence. The expectation that we consume advertising in our shared public spaces is tantmount to asking us to watch a commercial before water will come out of the faucet, and that is something I think we can all agree to fight against. 

Illegal Wildposting on My Way To Lunch

video footage taken early September 2013.

On my way to lunch today I came across an old familiar face wildposting in broad daylight. I have come across this particular person several times in the past, the first time being when he helped implicate my friends for the "crime" of protesting his companies illegal use of public space. As you can see by the blue painted posters, the construction company is doing all it can to keep the construction shed blue so they don't incur fines for the "work" he is doing. To him it must seem as if I am wandering the streets looking for illegal posting perpetrators 24 hrs a day. That couldn't be further from the truth, and should be an indication of the frequency and impunity with which wildposting happens. As you can see, I keep my distance in these situations due to past circumstances, but this man and I always exchange a few tense words. He asked if "I ever get tired of this" and I responded "No. Seems like you don't either." To which he responded "That's because they pay me." I asked him "If he was working for Contest Promotions or NPA still?" A question he smartly avoided before getting into his car.

I don't particularly like the fact that I end up F*%#ing with this guys life by continually catching him breaking the law, but I do know that the proliferation of consumer messages in our daily lives and especially on our streets where we have no option but to ingest them, is a detriment to our collective health that he continues to help perpetuate. Maybe one day we can have a beer and laugh this whole thing off, but until then I feel a duty to question the proliferation of commercial media in our shared public spaces, be it illegal or not.

NPA/Contest Promotions on the Brink of Collapse 4 Years After NYSAT

video footage taken early August 2013.

PublicAdCampaign readers will know that we squared off with a company called National Promotions of America, or more recently, Contest Promotions in the past. While we take issue with all forms of advertising in public space for numerous reasons discussed on this blog at length, NPA found itself a target for a large scale action due to their bold illegal advertising business model in NYC. After 4 years of legal gymnastics costing the citizens of NYC what I can only imagine to be millions of dollars in legal fees and precious DOB sign enforcement unit time and effort, it looks like karma is finally rearing its head and dishing out what is due.

A little bird that keeps me informed of important updates on NPA's trials and tribulations sent me an email recently to inform me that things were headed south...and fast. While the text below is not a quote, it does reflect the general sentiment of the troubles NPA finds itself in after acting against public interest. While I cant post the breakdown of monetary troubles NPA finds itself in, I can tell you their troubles are in the millions and the company will likely go under due to their reckless behavior and lack of respect for NYC and its residents.

John, we have a few problems that we desperately need to discuss. The NYC Department of Buildings is coming down on us hard with new violations that are classified as aggravated 1 and carry a $25,000.00 fine instead of the usual $10,000.00 if there is a previous violation that has not been corrected. Sadly they are able to attach this new violation to 61 of the 76 BA sites that we have. In fact they have attached 8 aggravated 1’s to a property that will likely have to go to court with the expectation of $200,000.00 in fines along with the $10,000.00 that already exists. I must tell you that the Landlords are getting more upset by the day and that Mary is advising us to take the signs down because she can’t control things at this point. I am afraid that if we don’t pay close attention to this, things will erupt. 

That said, the ECB and the Administrative Law Judges are becoming exhausted with our antics and seem to be siding with the Department of Buildings. I believe the claimants are undermining my testimony in an attempt to discredit my previous statements in court. We have court appearances through December of 2013 with approximately 4-7 cases every week. Unsurprisingly we have not been able to hear more than 3-4 cases each week, which means this issue will not end until well into 2014 as it stands now. Because the new violations are being written at the new aggravated level, we will go even further into 2014. These fines will add up fast and the additional penalties will make it harder for us to settle with the city. I think we should discuss this new situation immediately. . .

Elle and Shark Toof in LA over NPA Billboards.

Elle and Shark Toof hit NPA out in LA with this lovely collaboration. Celebrity flowers indeed.

More Proof that the Public Can Handle Curation of its Public Environment

Never has filed in the blank where Contest Promotions has relinquished control. Its a stark contrast and a favorable one for the public if you ask me. 

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

Most of Los Angeles's Digital Billboards Have Now Gone Dark

LA has been waging a war against Clear Channel Outdoor for nearly 6 years now, a battle which has cost the city unimaginable amounts of money. Finally today those offending digital signs which are at the center of this debacle have gone dark by court order. While I am happy to see the city of LA take back control its streets from a company who essentially thought it was above the law, I am disheartened that this battle has been waged due to the illegality of the signage and not more ideological issues about advertisings place on our city streets. One battle at a time I guess as I look forward to NPA, and CPI, finally packing their bags from NY and heading back to a city which supports its illegal flyposting business. 

VIA: LA Curbed

Notice a lack of blinky flashiness on the roads yesterday? That's because billboard companies Clear Channel Outdoors and CBS Outdoors actually turned off their digital billboards yesterday, per court order. The move is just the latest in the long-running and surprisingly kind of dramatic battle between billboard companies, other billboard companies, and the city. CBS and Clear Channel put up about 100 signs...More [HERE]

NPA/Contest Promotions on the Verge of Collapse? Or Just the Best Birthday Present Ever?

DISCLAIMER: This post is based on completely unauthenticated conjecture and potentially inaccurate information. That said, PublicAdCampaign has for 10 years made outdoor advertising in public space a core issue in its campaign to understand how public space can be used in more authentic and productive ways. On that journey we have made friends and enemies. Those friends sometimes tell us things. 

The short story: PublicAdCampaign noticed NPA outdoor was running hundreds of illegal bilboards totaling hundreds of thousands of square feet of illegal signage in NY. We ran an illegal civil disobedience project called NYSAT that reclaimed nearly 20,000 square feet of that signage for public projects. Documentation [HERE] Over 100 people participated in two events, 9 were arrested, 360 hours of jail time logged, 10k in legal fees and one emboldened public later, things started to change. 

First the illegal ads went white, but not with our makeshift buckets of low grade housepaint, with the paper posters of the company itself. For whatever reasons, the city had come out in force and I was ecstatic thinking that direct action projects like NYSAT could have near immediate affects on public space. More projects were planned for other cities and PublicAdCampaign forged on to new destinations ripe for civil disobedience with a social consciousness. In fact, some of those illegal billboards that were painted white eventually came down completely. There was fire in our bellies.

 

But then it began, the illegal signage became active again, topped with a message about prizes and raffles. It seemed that NPA had dodged a bullet (no doubt with serious legal prowess) by dissolving as a company and re-emerging as Contest Promotions. The new bussiness model walked a tightrope directly over the heads of the city itself demanding that the advertising they once illegally posted, was not advertising at all but now, representations of products that one could find inside the building. By this definition the advertising images (movie posters, albums and fashion) were no different than a deli awning. If you could win a taylor swift poster inside this parking garage, they could cover the facade with taylor swift signage and call it legit. It was legal gymnastics of olympic proportions.

On my birthday, I received a wonderful email from a little bird telling me of things to come. There were sordid details that I am unable to communicate but the long story short was...

"NPA/Contest Promotions is over as of Tues there will no longer be a single panel left with AD copy on them. The City is issuing restraining orders against everyone and finally they have cracked the case against the partners and left them w/bankruptcy as the only option. All the panels will be white washed and removed by the city - white washed first - by Tuesday 4:30 pm."

Again, this information comes from an unknown and potentially untrustworthy source. That said, I anxiously await tomorrow and hope to see the streets go white as we bid farewell to a devious company now called Contest Promotions. I am obviously skeptical. The company has done a great job of reaping huge profits at the expense of the public good, by making the city spends massive amounts of money to police laws which its citizens have demanded. They act in self interest while using the space which we so desperately need to serve the many. It is not only a crime what they have done, but a disservice to society brought upon us by greedy individuals. For over three years we have awaited this day.

I look forward to their departure.

Iselin in Fours - New Billboard Work

Despite spending a large amount of my time these days organizing and curating underground art projects, pushing Augmented Reality visions of our cities, and other such curatorial endeavors in public space, I continue to make work both in the studio and on the street. When I work on the street I have two main objectives, produce something which viewers will understand is not an advertisement, and keep the imagery changing so that I do not become an ad for myself. 

This new billboard takeover breaks my first rule a little more than I'd like referencing a fashion ad despite not having any branding or text. That said, the image is one that is dear to my heart as well as one I have been wanting to use for some time. Several years ago I was on a fashion shoot and took a single polaroid which I carried in my wallet for nearly four years. When I found the image, it had aged in a way that I fell in love with, leaving only the right eye unscathed by time. Not sure if this image will find its way into other work but I thought it worthwhile for a test. 

Wildposting Continues Despite DOB Crackdown

A few years ago, we targeted a company call NPA outdoor with the NYSAT project because they were illegally operating hundreds of street level billboards in NYC alongside a massive illegal Flyposting campaign. The result of the NYSAT action was a massive crackdown on NPA by the NYC DOB which resulted in the near eradication of illegal Flyposting in the city as well an indictment of NPA's illegal billboard activities. Through legal gymnastics, NPA went out of business only to reappear as Contest Promotions, the same company operating at the same locations under what they argued were different legal circumstances. Long story short is Contest Promotions claimed they were not in the advertising business at all but rather working directly with mom and pop businesses to run a raffle program which allowed them to call their advertising product and their business operations first party, not third.

Surprisingly Contest Promotions was able to argue their case affectively and now those once illegal billboards are legal first party signage. Sad to see the illegal advertising company dodge responsibility and continue operating, we never expected our civil disobedience project to spur the city into action, but took heart in the fact that it did. It was a moment of staggering excitement when I noticed Flyposting had almost entirely stopped in NY and that the city was cracking down on the illegal business practices of NPA Outdoor.

You can imagine my reaction some two years later as Flyposting has begun full force in the city once more. I cannot say for sure who is behind these illegal activities but given my resources I will make sure to get to the bottom of this problem and bring whoever is responsible to light. Please send us pictures of any illegal Flyposting campaigns you see and if you can catch someone in the act, please take their picture so we can confirm the identity of the company in charge.

Also, if you are interested in the backstory, look back into our archives under NPA Outdoor, NYSAT, or Contest Promotions and you can read more from about this companies sordid past.

In SF, billboards proliferate, despite voter-approved ban

As many PublicAdCampaign readers know, litigation against offending outdoor advertising companies can be a long and arduous affair for the lawyers tasked with upholding the law. This article from the Bay Citizen proves this fact once again, citing the work of two of the most difficult outdoor advertising firms, Fuel and Contest promotions. These companies actions are not isolated to San Francisco but are similarly represented in NY, LA, Chicago and other major metropolitan cities around the US.

VIA: The Bay Citizen

When Milo Hanke moved from Boston to San Francisco in 1982, he found a city in need of improvement.

“This was the most charmed and enchanted city,” Hanke recalled, “but there were certain urbanscapes I really enjoyed at night that were blocked by signs. I dreamed one day there would be no billboards.” More [HERE]

A Case And Point at Kenmare and Bowery SWC

Earlier today I happened to pass by a NYC location I have become quite familiar with. Not long ago it held a large NPA advertisement that has been the target of a few of the public actions I've organized. This billboard came down recently and the wall sat empty for some time. Today I found out that it now holds a mural by an artist unknown to me. The progression of this wall speaks to a point I have made over and over again and that is central to my belief that outdoor advertising has no place in the public environment. I have long argued that not only does outdoor advertising have a negative psychological affect on the public, but it also has the undesired affect of reducing public use of public space by monetizing our cities surfaces and thus silencing those voices which cannot afford to pay for that space. Landlords would be foolish to not capitalize on their properties value and therefor the elimination of outdoor advertising must come with the elimination of any monetary incentives. Regardless, this wall is a microcosm of this idea, which would on a larger scale transform the city from a largely commercially based visual environment, to a public whose walls reflected the creativity and culture of the cities individuals.

Location progression over the last few years:

NPA operated 

  Enjoy Banking unauthorized reappropriation for NYSAT

Mr. Dimaggio unauthorized reappropriation

Empty location after first removal

Current state as of 4-25-12

Oddly enough this is the location where I really became aware that the company that operates these street level billboards was doing so illegally. Late one night I had been drinking in the LES. Heading towards the J train, I saw two workers posting advertisements at this location. I decided to see what they were up to and if they would talk to me. When I approached them they were very nonchalantly going about their job while smoking a joint, their pickup truck awkwardly parked half on, and half off the sidewalk. Around this time I was already under the assumption that not only the flyposting by NPA (now Contest Promotions) but the billboard postings like this one, were illegal. I began by asking about their job, how well they were paid, what the hours were like? etc. They were very forthcoming with me  and answered my questions while going about their bussiness. Feeling loose from the drinks I had had earlier, I decided to see if they would tell me a bit more as we seemed to be getting along quite well. Under the assumption that I was looking to apply for a job, I asked about why they worked at night and whether or not what they were doing was illegal. They seemed to take the question in stride, definitely not surprised by my inquiry. They said that every once in a while they were "hassled" by the cops and that they were taken downtown for illegal posting of signs. They were also quick to tell me that NPA lawyers were always jimmy on the spot with bail and that they received 500 dollars extra for the ordeal. 

Shortly after this conversation we launched NYSAT, several of my friends were arrested, but NPA's illegal use of public space was being rigorously inspected by the Department of Buildings. Not too long after that this sign came down, only to be up again for a short time, and then removed once more. It seemed the city had been able to enforce its laws and that NPA would be forced to shut down its bussiness. Alas this was not the case and NPA has become the fraudulently titled Contest Promotions. The company now operates under a new business model which has converted their inventory of 3rd party signage (commercial offsite advertising) to 1st party signage (onsite advertising for the business or operator at said location) in the eyes of the law. Contest Promotions purports to support local mom and pop businesses but are most often seen on the sides of parking lots and bars. As part of this new legal gymnastics, the company must operate a "contest" at the locations at which they have signage. Some of their old spots, including the one in this post simply do not comply with this new model and have therefore been permanently removed. While I wish the company would have not continued to bombard our streets with images of conspicuous consumption, I am happy that this location has proved a long held belief of mine. The elimination of outdoor advertising from our shared public environment would have a strong positive affect on the psychological environment we share as co-inhabitors of this great city. 

Random NPA Subvertisement

I was walking around tonight for no apparent reason looking at ads. Trying to find a few things off the beaten path when I fell into these pieces. I'm not sure if these are sanctioned by Contest Promotions or if these are random illegal pieces, but I imagine the later. Either way they reminded me of Ramon for the first NYSAT project, the site representing it I have realized is down. I will repair it in the next few days and apologize for the inconvenience.

Contest Promotions Wins Supreme Court Battle and Permits Are Being Issued

old Contest Promotions Signage attached to garage and showing movie posters.

It really is the wild west out there. Contest Promotions, operating under a bogus business model which purports that their illegal 1st party signage is actually legal 3rd party signage, recently sued the city of New York after being fined and asked to remove their illegal signs. They claimed that "the Department of Buildings' determination that Contest Promotions' sign model fails to qualify as permissible 'accessory use' is arbitrary, capricious and affected by errors of law."

Demanding that the city recognize their signage as 3rd party, or accessory use, they argue that the advertisements which adorn the sides of many buildings in NYC are a vital component of the mom and pop business model. Without such "promotional" material they have determined these mom and pop businesses, many of which are delis, would fall victim to the big box stores and be forced to close. In their arguments, the signage reminds passersby that specific products are available inside the establishment as is the expectation of all 3rd party signage. As evidence of this fact, they submitted a photo of an advertisement on the side of Roberto's Grocery which is for Tropicana orange juice. While Roberto's Grocery most likely sells OJ, the fact of the matter is that the advertisements often placed at these locations are for movies, concerts and music, all of which are not sold at deli's or the other myriad types of business to which these signs are affixed. Basically I am saying this argument is bullshit and tantamount to Contest Promotions lying to the city of NY outright.

It seems that A Supreme Court decision, rendered by Justice Rakower, requires DOB to approve permits for signs applied for in conformance with a “model” put forth by Contest Promotions. This decision is obviously under appeal, but in the meantime expect Contest Promotions to be out in droves, updating their signage and making things as "official" as possible while they have the green light. Obviously this is very upsetting to me as it proves once again that the city, and by extension its citizenry, is often held hostage by the whims of advertising companies hellbent on making huge profits off of the use of our public environment. It shows how difficult it is to fight this industry and a culture of commercialism, not to mention how our tax dollars are used to hold back the oncoming flood. I am truly dumbfounded by the system in this situation, expecting a city to be able to locate an illegal advertisement and or advertising company and simply have them removed. Instead, the city locates clearly illegal ads and in this case an entire company operating illegally, and then must jump through hoops for years in order to fight against the onslaught of lawyers put forth by these ill tempered business'.

Remember that this is the same company that once called themselves National Promotions of America, plastered our city and our construction sheds with illegal signage and generally created mayhem on the streets. When they were caught red handed, they dissolved NPA and re-opened as Contest Promotions on a new business model claiming that they were not advertising at all. For them to seriously claim that they are here to help the city makes me loose faith in reason and wonder if the world isn't spinning backwards. If helping Mom & Pops is so important, why do they pay only 50 dollars to rent the sides of these buildings, most likely paying landlords and not business owners in the end anyways. The whole thing reeks of abuse at the expense of our neighborhoods and collective psyche.

Read the entire legal document [HERE]

While Contest Promotions Is On The Decline, Mediacy Spreads Like Cancer

NPA outdoor once ran rampant in New York, plastering construction sheds with illegal flyposting and erecting hundreds of illegal street level billboards in all 5 boroughs. Coming under the attack of local citizens and the NYC Department of Buildings, NPA was forced to cease its flyposting activities and face up to the fact that while its inventory of street level billboards looked legitimate, they were in fact highly illegal. The result was NPA dissolving in NYC and re-branding itself as Contest Promotions. This name change was not just for PR but was part of a larger business model shift which attempted to re-define what constitutes outdoor advertising by contending that their illegal signage was in fact 1st party signage. The idea is that because you can win posters and prizes which are similar to the advertisements outside, the Contest Promotions ads are not ads at all, but actually visualizations of products offered on site. New York is in a lawsuit with Contest Promotions over this business model alteration, and while I am unaware of the details, it looks like we might be winning. Which is good because if they win get ready for a wave of outdoor advertising to fill every nook and cranny of our public lives.

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After

Contest Promotions signage is coming down all over the city slowly but steadily. The above and below are examples of locations once held by the company which have recently been abandoned, presumably because they do not stand up to this new business model. While I am excited to see Contest Promotions go, I am even more excited to see what might potentially become of these spaces. The goal of removing signage in the city is not to create a stark environment but rather an environment prepared to accept the imagery and ideas of a local citizenry.

Before
After

While Contest Promotions seems to be on the decline in New York, another street level nuisance seems to be gaining some footing. Michael Gitter's Mediacy and his Gatescape program has riddled the city in Lady Gaga advertisements, plastering rolldown gates all over the city with decrepit plastic sheeting and two 60 watt lightbulbs. Sadly Michael has gone through the process of obtaining permits for many of his Gatescape locations, making them technically legal. This in no way makes them acceptable in my opinion and as the city is slowly overcrowded with street level signage like this I think we will have to take a long look at how the permitting process in New York allows for the dissemination of commercial messages without concern for the residents of our neighborhoods. Speaking to passersby who had noticed the garish Gaga posters, most people found the ads ugly, uncharacteristic of their neighborhoods, and an intrusion on their psyche which was entirely unwanted. At some point permits will not matter in the wake of aggressive public opinion.
Mediacy Gatescape Advertising

THE PROBLEM WITH MOCA : STREET ART TALKS BACK

Eddie Cola sent me a link to a BSA article about his recent ad takeover commenting on the current MoCA show Art in the Streets. It seems the best part of this is that after the work was covered with the ussual movie poster filth perpetrated by Contest Promotions, onlookers removed the ads in favor of Eddie's handiwork.

VIA Brooklyn Street Art

Eddie Colla says his billboard takeover is a response to a Huffington Post article last week where a finger wagging tone was on display toward current street artists, “MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch pegs it on the ‘young’ and ‘anarchic,’ and is quoted giving this message to illegal taggers: ‘If you harness your talent you can be in a museum some day, make a contribution and a living from it.’ ” [More Here]