BILLBOARD TAX TO GO BEFORE CITY COUNCIL NEXT MONDAY/TUESDAY!

As everyone undoubtedly is aware by now, the new sign by-law is going before city council on Monday or Tuesday next week. The proposed by-law will control the proliferation of billboards, remove illegal billboards and bring in new revenues to the city - revenues currently being recommended to go to the arts community.

If you have not done so - please call your home Councillor (you can find your ward information here: http://app.toronto.ca/wards/jsp/wards.jsp) to let them know you support the by-law and hope they will vote in favour at Council.

CHECK IT OUT!!!!!

Art as an Alternative

Councilor De Baeremaeker may firmly believe that advertisements are beautiful, but we'd rather appreciate the art of other Torontonians than having Ronald McDonald smiling down on us from a billboard 50 feet above us. If advertising is a financial imperative to the economic stability of the city of Toronto, it is key to find a proper alternative that will not only free Toronto streets from privatization, but also support city funding.
A very promising alternative is the implementation of Billboard licensing fees, proposed by the Beautiful City Campaign, an alternative that not only creates a lively city but also democratizes the outdoors! This new direction allows for the financing of more art events such as Nuit Blanche, an event important to Toronto's cultural fabric. It also allows for the funding of art programs which would in turn help generate a creative Toronto youth, giving the city a more promising future.
The flashy advertisements at Yonge-Dundas square may be exciting to see but imagine a Yonge-Dundas Square that was no longer cluttered with corporate ads but filled with murals, paintings, silk-screens, videos and installations by local artists. Now that is what we call the propagation of local culture and the reclamation of our streets for our use!

We'll See You On The Streets

In a city where our space has been handed over to large corporations, it is imperative to the public good (a last priority to corporations and even some local MP's) that citizens are able to use their public space as a democratic platform. A practice that has been employed by some members of the public that helps in creating this desired common public forum is the use of posters to convey their messages. Similar to the way in which corporations use advertisements to raise consumer awareness of their products, posters similarly achieve the same results for Toronto citizens, although on a much less effective level because there truly is no way for the public's 8x11 posters to compete with the even larger, more appealing and sexually charged billboards and posters of companies such as American Apparel.

However, while some city councillors (the wonderful Janet Davis) agree with our stance on the importance of 'posterization' as a method to reclaim public streets, other city council members disagree with our cause (the foolish Glen De Baeremaeker).

Videos via The Toronto Public Space Committee
Councillor De Baeremaeker not only finds that the monstrous and cluttering ads within Toronto are beautiful but he also finds that selling public space without public consent has positive consequences. He fails to understand the negative implications that this not only has on the cognition of citizens but also on the public's right to freedom of expression. Where do posters fit in within the impediment of democracy?
Within Toronto, city councillors (including Glen De Baeremaeker) are attempting to pass the anti-postering by law which prohibits the placement of posters to only %2 of all utility poles. If you haven't already observed the current situation with posters in Toronto, there already isn't sufficient space on the utility poles available to convey one's message properly. Many of the poles also harbor those of large companies, threatening the public voice in one of the last options available to them in making their voices heard. The by-law also stated that "a poster may not cover or overlap another poster or community poster, in whole or in part. Posters or community posters can be only one layer thick." However, as stated earlier, what other options exist when there is not enough space. This proposed by-law solely becomes a liability, costing too much money to maintain and further privatizing public space. It is important that this by-law is rejected within city council
The City’s Clean and Beautiful City Initiative proposes the installment of posting columns as a replacement for the cluttered utility poles, however, this only contributes to the lack of space already available.
Advertising may allocate the city of Toronto an extra $80-million dollars that will help fund the already inadequate social programs, but in doing so it proliferates a whole new set of issues. In order for public space to truly thrive, it is imperative that we not only highlight the problems that arise with advertising but propose different options that can replace them (something councilor De Baeremaeker has the inability to do). One thing is certain, posters are a key part in keeping public space public as opposed to private.

An Adverse Social Norm

The very obvious change in the method which advertisers use to convey their message. Women are more sexualized today, since advertising emphasizes the importance of beauty.

Advertising as a whole has been so ingrained within the fabric of our society that we longer see anything wrong with it because it's just an accepted aspect of a bustling city. It has entered our lives such an obtrusive way, yet our empathy to participate in the discourse of significant issues does not allow us.

Billboard ads in particular are strategically placed to capture our inquisitive mind. Advertising culture has changed from a more informational method of conveying information to a more expressive and conceptual way. This current advertising culture preys on the fears, desires and insecurities of consumers in order to achieve better results for the various corporations who stake a claim in the wallets of the unsuspecting public. This switch has also offered the audience less cognition about products and more sensory orientated heuristics about positions and branding of companies.

Previous to the 1970s consumers were exposed to informative ads that helped them make decisions by exploring the positive results of a product and the inadequacies of those of the competitors. Post-70's, informational ads were not as effective as consumers lost trust in the government due to a new awareness of the deception the political institutions during to the Vietnam war. They then associated that deception with media and advertising, forcing advertisers to change quickly change tactics. This change entailed a type of advertising that emotionally and heuristically approached messages. This style of advertising carried through the 90's and into the present, forcing consumers to create an emotional attachment towards advertisements. This advertising trend will continue if nothing is done by the public and city councillor members, it is important for us to pressure or MP's in creating change for us, if not, we will further become slaves to the bright and optimistic messages, with negative results.

Taking Back The Space: Why Should You Give A Damn?

Seem like the question should be "why haven’t we done anything about this yet?" Its about time we come to change something that has been ingrained in the very being of our culture. Times change, so should how our world markets function. We are constantly in the presence of advertisements and business, to the extent that they own us, so why cant we stand up and let them know that they need us, we don’t need them!

It has come to the point where people can’t go for a walk without being attacked by ads, whether it be on a bus stop or a billboard is not the issue, the issue is that we don’t seem to have an ad free minute. These Advertisers have bought all of our public space and are selling it right back to us! We see about 3,000 ads every day, not month, DAY and advertisers question why we have an issue with them in public space. Being that Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world it's difficult to understand how the city allows products that are so one dimensional to be shown to the masses. At one point we created and thrived in our own culture, no longer is this the case, Advertisers wont allow us to create culture because they are creating it for us!

Try and imagine a Gardiner free of billboards or a park full of trees and nothing else, appealing right? We have so little time for ourselves and AD-ios believes if they wont give it to us, then we TAKE IT! What good is it to have freedom when we’re told what to wear, what we need, how to look and how to be? The title “free” doesn’t mean much these days, we can change that!

Here is an image of Yonge and Dundas as it is today, Advertisers have placed their products everywhere further contributing to the loss of our own Canadian culture and the growth of the ones they present to us which tend to be Americanized.

We'll Take it to The Streets

Follow Ad-ios! as we posterize the city of Toronto and discuss the imperatives of an ad-free city!

Raise Your Voice & Join the Fight

Imagine, if you will, that you're alone in a large, open room with plenty of space to do whatever you want, say whatever you please, and express yourself in whatever way preferable to you. Now imagine that slowly that space begins to fill with other people, until eventually all you have left of your large, open room is the space above your head and you're now surrounded by people telling you that your opinions, speech and expression don't matter and no one wants to hear any of it.

Sound Appealing?

Space is an essential aspect in any functional democratic society, a concept which raises a great amount of controversy as our space gradually becomes bombarded with advertising and other expressions of commercial interest.

It is many people’s belief that public space belongs to us- the consumers, and for that very reason should not be managed in support of private or commercial interests. We visit public spaces for our own purposes, whether it be to travel (i.e. bus), to learn something (i.e. library) or to engage with one another (i.e. café’s or parks). When we lose these common areas, the very idea of the public, to advertising and billboards we lose the notion of there being any space outside of the consumer’s market. We are being sent the message that whatever we may be doing, saying or engaging in is less important than our role as consumers and as a result have fewer places where we can relate to each other as citizens instead of fellow consumers, weakening our democracy.

From this fight for public space, numerous organizations have arisen:

The Beautiful City Campaign: An initiative aimed at beautifying, democratizing, and diversifying access to public space and putting an annual licensing fee on billboard advertising as a means of holding corporations accountable for their impact on shared space.

The Toronto Public Space Committee: Viewing the public as citizens first and consumers second, this committee is dedicated to protecting shared and common spaces from commercial influence and privatization.

Newmindspace: An organization which hosts free, all-ages events, ranging from pillow fights at Dundas square to streetcar parties and giant games of capture the flag, in an attempt to reclaim public space and create community.

It is organizations such as these that work towards reclaiming public space from advertising and providing alternative uses for the space. These alternatives, mainly revolve around various art forms meant to create community and celebrate creative expression and it is for this reason that it is imperative for us to team up with these organizations, either by joining them or by individually setting out for the same cause.

It is through the work of these organizations and the potential impact that each of us can have as opinionated citizens that a difference can be made on our streets.

Its time that we stand up, raise our voice and fight for our city and what’s rightfully ours!

Toronto Street Furniture

You may have seen them around the city already – the new, sleek designs of bus shelters; showy, automated joint garbage and recycling bins; ergonomically designed jazzy new benches. New artful designs or hotbed for even more advertising in our already commercial-saturated city?

Rather than serving any public purpose here in our city, the new series of street furniture steals what precious little space Torontonians to post their own public material – culture jamming material, graffiti, or even the posters we put up across the city to promote the cause of taking back our space.

What’s more is that the city developed the designs specifically with commercial interests in mind. Astral Media, the company that owns nearly all the ad space on the new Toronto street furniture and hundreds of ads across the city, aided in devising the new bus shelters, garbage cans, benches and nearly any other piece of street furniture you once thought was merely existent for your comfort or convnience.

What does the city get out of this deal? Try $21 million from the Astral media ad sales – a guaranteed $428.8 million over the next 20 years. Don’t get too comfortable; you’re sitting on a gold mine.

Consider the myriad number of other uses OUR space could have, apart from plugging the new iPod or hottest CTV show. Vancouver did – rather than selling our space to a media conglomerate, they allowed their citizens to design their manhole covers and other street furniture. It’s a bit dated, but here’s the news report:



Really, David Miller? I guess the $21 million was the icing on the cake in that city council meeting.

One final thought to leave you with – Astral Media is also (“allegedly”) responsible for dozens of illegal billboards and signs across the Greater Toronto Area. Do not let them get away with this – TAKE BACK OUR SPACE!

Utility Pole Blues

DOWNTOWN TORONTO, Nov. 18 - These streets are made for the voices of the public and no advertisers can suppress our urge to make our voices heard! Although the cold, cloudy and wet weather tried to keep us off of the city sidewalks, nothing would prevent us from posterizing all the downtown utility poles in sight.

Much like the guerilla postering on the Gulelph-Humber campus, AD-ios! hit Toronto to raise a larger awareness among the public beyond the constraints of the indoors. In the public forum, our freedom of speech is easily conveyed through posterization, a creative and democratic method of exchanging ideas and culture. However, while vigorously taping our mugshot campaign posters across the utility poles of Kensington Market and Queen Street West, we came to realize that this right is also threatened by advertisers.

Not only have advertisements infringed on our public space by erecting large billboards that clutter our cityscape, but they have also attacked the utility poles used by the public, making it difficult to find space to place posters. With no allotted space, covering other posters with those of our own was the only option in conveying our message. To avoid sabotaging the messages of other local citizens, we attacked the large corporate advertisements, covering some from top to bottom in AD-ios! campaign posters.

However, this too also has it's implications because other 'posterers', carrying the messages of the corporate media, recommended that we shouldn't post our posters over theirs' during our posterization campaign. According to these 'posterers', they would inevitably be covered up by a new advertising campaign and advised us to cover up the smaller, non-privatized posters instead. In an advertisement saturated society, does a common public forum exist? Or are we now solely forced to use virtual space as a democratic platform?

We want and deserve our right to public space and the easy accessibility to posterize without corporate threat!

The Mugshot Campaign

As a protest against the unwanted proliferation of advertisements across the city of Toronto and the proposed bylaw which will constrain posterization, the AD-ios! team have created a series of posters to place across city streets. These posters depict some of the recent ad campaigns which have plagued Toronto's space, from American Apparel to CTV's Canada's Next Top Model. However, they are no longer on the large and bright billboards which tower over city sidewalks, attracting impressionable and prodcut hungry consumers. Now, with only one phone call, they're broken, bruised and beaten as they pose for their prison mugshots, their last 15 minutes of fame, before they are carried off to their cells. If only this were the reality!
By plastering these posters across Toronto streets, we hope to raise further awareness of the constantly overlooked issue of the privatization of public space while simultaneously taking a strong stance on the ridiculous anti-postering bylaw. From Kensigton Market to Queen St. W, we hope to inspire the citizens of Toronto to learn how they can make a difference in improving their city and bring city space back into their hands!

THE POSTERS HAVE BEEN POSTED!

Today's mission was successfully accomplished with the Guerrilla Postering of Guelph-Humber!

GUELPH-HUMBER CAMPUS, Nov. 18 - In an attempt to duplicate the actions of large media conglomerates we have given a big "FUCK YOU!" to the man. In order to show an example of how media corporations pollute public space we contaminated the walls of G.H. with posters advertising this blog.

Just as the walls of G.H. do not belong to us as a forum for our advertising, public space and the visual environment of citizens does not belong to Media corporations. The use of public space as a medium to perpetuate corporate messages is not acceptable and often times is done illegally.

The G.H. admin has NOT approved the postering attack we have launched on campus much to the likeness of how the public has not approved the messages broadcast on 50 ft billboards in public spaces. The world of outdoor advertising and the manipulation of public spaces for commercial interests is NOT in the interest of citizens.

Where do the profits from these imposing and often illegal advertisements go? Surely not to public services (which are in desperate need of funding, **(HELLO!: TTC fare hike!)** and social programs (homelessness, social housing, public/community art initiatives etc...).

So join together with "AD-ios" and stick it to the wall! Just as our posters are sure to meet unwelcome opposition on the walls of the school, outdoor advertising and the use of our public spaces for commercial interests are NOT welcome in our city. Not only are the messages unapproved by the citizens, the rightful owners of public spaces, but each time we do not open our mouths to speak out against these illegal abominations we give our consent for this type of big business to continue.