“An explosion of architectural little magazines in the 1960s and 1970s instigated a radical transformation in architectural culture with the architecture of the magazines acting as the site of innovation and debate. In addition to short-lived radical magazines, Clip/Stamp/Fold includes pamphlets and building instruction manuals along with professional magazines that experienced “moments of littleness,” influenced by the graphics and intellectual concerns of their self-published contemporaries. The exhibition’s annotated timeline serves as a cross-section, tracking the progression, upheavals, and transformations of the magazines”
This is an idea i drew up for the interim reviews last week which followed on from my surveying of the city centre billboards and the proposal for Sheffield to could go Ad-Free. This idea focuses on the re-use of the billboards that are already existing parts of the infrastructure and are sited in key places to gain attention and maximum visual area. The design is an on site printing system that would be fed by a roll of paper that my mill would produce at Park Hill. The devide is linked to an internet connection to allow remote control of its source information that would be printed. My initial ideas for what would be printed were focused on the existance of the SheffieldForum.co.uk which has over 52,000 members who discuss all topics. Some of the discussions start and end abruptly but some go on and on for pages and obviously resonate with more than a closed community that some web forums are made up from.
By utilising the varied siting of the existing billboards the forum topics could be directed to a location relating to the discussion to give some context and physical relevance to the printed output. So an arguement that has spawned bacause of a recent planning approval could be sent to a ThinkingPrinter close to the site itself, or a employer that is planning to cut jobs could have discussions printed close to its site as a form of expanding paper picket line.
The idea to use printed media and paper is intentional to allow on site additions by pedestrians or even take sections away with them if they particularly enjoy them(this may be more relevant to sites that could be tailored for artwork display). This follows the arguement line of some that believe the paperless world idea will never come into being because humans will always desire a physical copy as they associate it with control and interaction rather than virtual intangible formats. This is why a digital screen for this concept would be redundant as it is no step forward from the online forum which we utilse through the computer, the mental barrier is still present until you can see touch and change, all on your own in one place.
After drawing up this idea I found a similar idea that has recently been opened in the Science Musuem, London, which is called ‘Listening Post’. There is a detailled description of the installation at the link below, but in summary there is a matrix of screens that present the online conversations from chat rooms etc in various forms of analysis with music and speech collaborating with this visual display to create a ‘dynaic portrait’ in the style of a symphony. This seems to suffer the same problem that I mention above though, that of viewer isolation rather than participation. This is voyeristic display and intended much more for analysis rather than a catalyst for interaction. Despite this, as a process it seems very impressive and i look forward to taking a look at it when I’m in London.
Heres an updated version of my drawing which i have been working on. I’ve added a colour coding key to the various groups and buisnesses on the map to make it easier to read and obviously a bit more fun to look at.
This is an exert from the evolved idea about mapping the world of advertising which has now focused on Sheffield as a site fully immersed in the capatilist ecomonic process. I have geographically mapped all industries associated and involved with producing ‘public’ images for corporate entities which were identified in my first diagram/map. To add to level of density i have walked around the streets and area of sheffield that the council have identified as the city core and primary and secondary retail zones and recoreded the advertising sites that exist and some basic details; who owns them and what size they are. These are then connected to possible sources of advertising material that would be displayed on them so the image left is one of possible interconnections rather than actual relationships.
Preceeding this process that has taken a few weeks to advance to this stage, i spoke to individuals from the major outdoor advertising companys like Clear Channel and JCDecaux and they told me that they have a complex database system that will tell them the projected rental periods of a particular site or all sites they own to allow an accuate offer to prospective clients. This information is owned by themselves and they were clearly very protective over it due to the competitiveness of their industry. I later discovered by speaking to POSTAR who are the official research body for the sector, that when a site is created by whoever, the owner can employ POSTAR to conduct a Panel Audit which will provide the owner with about 250 pieces of information that they can use to rent the site out with. Most sites are owner by these large media companys so the audit information is not public information depsite its purpose being directed at them.
The industry is a rapidly growing sector in the UK with 10% of all advertising budget being spent of outdoor adverts. The role of POSTAR seems to be to ensure this growth by providing key information to the owners about how to obtain the best sites and sell to clients. To be able to get all this costs about £10,000 for membership to POSTAR.
The contrast we saw on out trip to Poland and most notably Nowa Huta was interesting, especially to note how they were dealing with the idea of outdoor advertising and shop frontage in the uniform communist blocks that clearly were not designed with maximium client imact and contact points in mind. All this makes me ask a question that was outlined in Domus a month ago where mass-media ad campaigns were described as unreliable now that the we are all mobile and wireless internet-connected individuals and that these were the new contact points for the ad men to exploit. So what would happen without all the ads that we all see in our urban space? Is there any need for them despite the seemingly booming industry in this country? Surely the suggested tactic of targeting the ‘invisible computers’ that are intergrating themselves into our lives is more advanced? Is there still a need for repetitive acknowledgement in actual space if we are logging on and getting this bombardment in our vitual space?
An example of what might happen is Sao Paulo, see the pictures and video for an investigative report about when the city’s government decided to go ‘clean’.
All images on this site are copyright the author except in cases shown by 'vHH' or 'P&M' where the images are copyright either van Heyningen Haward Architects and Provan and Makin Architects respectively. For information about publishing please contact the author.
