by Erkki Huhtamo
Visual media is exterior as much as it is interior e.g. Shibuya, Hachiko in Tokyo
These screens define this cityscape. The writer refers to it as "a mutating mosaic
that is part of the cityscape and at the same time becomes the cityscape". I agree with Huhtamo when they say that passers-by glance at the screens but don't get absorbed by them.
Rather they are apart of and help to form in the ambiance of the city.
If you think about it in a historical context, these types of mediums have always existed e.g. painted pr carved wall inscriptions in ancient Rome. Also:
Banners, flags, signs
Advertising in public places was seen as cheaper than putting ads in print, tv or radio and could reach a wider audience.
palimpsest covering the wall
Advertisements on everything around us:
There is a blog I follow on Tumblr that posts the coolest ad/marketing campaigns and adverts. It's jaymug.com. Here are a few ads that I thought were creative and cool:
Advertisements were initially small. They have grown both in size and creativity. Huhtamo refers to it as the ‘Gulliverisation’ of the visual.
"Gulliverisation operates at the divide between the public and the private. The urban environment, with the skyscraper as its ultimate manifestation, became more and more ‘inhuman’, whereas the home provided a return to the anthropomorphic scale."
Billboards gave products a universal quality, while newspapers made products feel more personal. (I never thought about it that way)
"Whatever attitude one adopted, the billboard
could not be ignored. And yet, considering it a ‘screen’ in the media-cultural sense would not be justified. A billboard could suggest a narrative, but it wasn’t a medium for sequential presentations. No matter how gigantic, it was a frozen printed image. It was able to move or evolve only in dreams or fantasies, as Busby Berkeley’s extravagant ‘Optical Illusion’ sequence in the Warner Bros musical Dames (1934) suggested".
Electric landscape
Brings to mind The Medium is the message by Marshall McLuhan
The lightbulb became advertising immediately...flickering lights drew attention. This helped in making advertising 24-hrs.
Speaking of lights, electric light effect like fireworks come to mind and McLuhan's theory.
"While ‘normal’ fireworks express at most simple icons (flowers, etc.), the representational elements of the ‘machine’ added allegorical and political
meanings to the show.
Check out this light show:
After projectors, LED Billboards was the logical progression.
"The matrixes of thousands of backlit LEDs glow with power that makes the messages visible in bright sunlight, not to say anything about the night. They not only try to attract, but capture the gaze. Those who are unfortunate enough to live under their glow have begun to experience ‘false sunrises’ and demand public regulation."
The writer seems to be against the concept of moving screens but stating that their birth came from and has always been powered by advertising. I have to agree. The information these screens display is hardly about education, rather it's an ever changing technology that it's main aim is to make the consumer stop and notice.
I frankly feel a bit insulted as if we are mindless moths that are supposed to be drawn to the pretty lights.
Now that we had read where this technology has emerged, the question to ask now is: Where is it going?
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