May 13th, 2007
Utility poles and free speech
By Spacing // 6 Comments
In today's Toronto Star, writer Murray Whyte examines the current state of postering in the city and discovers that the corporate advertisers are not only taking over our street furniture, they now control postering on major streets.
These are the familiar, the traditional: neighbourhood communiqués writ just large enough for locals to notice, then take or leave.
But on main arteries, like Queen, King, Yonge, College and Bloor streets, neighbourhood notices are withering beneath a flexing of corporate muscle. A recent survey: Companies like Gillette and Amp'd Mobile, blockbuster movies like The Reaping, or mega-clubs such as Koolhaus have pasted over the humble one-offs that sprout up from the grassroots.
"It's been a real shift," says Matt Blackett, creative director of Spacing magazine, which grew out of a campaign to save postering. (The magazine's first issue, in 2003, the slogan: "Freedom of speech is a thousand times more beautiful than clean lamp posts.")
But paving the way for corporate takeover is not what Blackett and company had in mind. "The ones who can afford massive outdoor advertising campaigns are the ones who do the most postering now," he says.
On every second pole on Queen, a massive baby-blue poster with bright orange lettering heralds "Freedom," a sprawling, corporate-sponsored musical event at the Guvernment. Underneath it, a handful of smaller postings are cast in darkness, invisible.
Read the full article.
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AR -- Why does the anominity of the internet turn people into assholes? Do you talk like you write in real life?
AR> the city can take down the posters, as can you, or anyone else.
If you noticed, the article was about the state of postering. Blackett was used as a source and wasn't the author.
Jeez, why don't you complain about everyone who has an opinion.
Anyone seen the posters for the Gillette Mans Night Out party? I can't wait... I can't remember the details, but I remember they're promising a whole lot plus "ladies".
The article raises an excellent point, but I think the example Whyte chooses in the excerpt above really muddles it.
Just because the Guv's posters don't have the grassroots aesthetic doesn't mean they're not grassroots.
A more fitting example would have been a transnational corporation or at least a national one like Rogers; instead, he chose a local (albeit large) nightclub whose only real "corporate sponsor" is Eye Weekly, owned by the same corporation as his employer.
The extent of their "sponsorship", I'm sure, is giving them a break on ad space in the free weekly.
It was that example that turned me off. Someone quotes Matt than describes that Freedom event as "sprawling, corporate-sponsored music event" as if that were a completely meaningless event. What are they supposed to do? Hold back on the postering? That defies the hole grassroots nature of street life. So, it left me wondering what was Matt's position of this, as I tend to associate his name with Spacing.
I guess the internet is problematic because it can be hard to interpret someone's tone. I wrote my comment in haste, and looking back it sounds admittedly sarcastic. So to answer Jen's question, I do talk the way I write but I don't think she would react that if she heard me say it.
So what's Blackett going to do now, personally strip every corporate poster? Ask the city to do it? Write a good article complaining about it?
Comment by A.R.
May 13, 2007 | 10:31 pm