An issue facing architecture today

Throughout history architects main purpose has been to create physical environments of form and function, their balance dependant on its designer. However as a society, we are quickly developing into an age that is dictated through digital means. Our time in the digital world is increasing; we are absorbed into hand held illuminated screens and unlimited entertainment.

How are the architects of the future going to incorporate this new lifestyle into their schemes? It is no longer adequate to suggest flat monitors parasitically attached to a clean form. Technology in this sector is moving faster than many architects understand, with many start-up companies developing creative ways to communicate three dimensionally. Architects develop structures that reflect societies needs, and so our thirst for more digitally intuitive design needs to be addressed.

An area of particular interest is that of illuminated advertisement squares such as Piccadilly Circus, Times Square and many more in the Far East. Often culturally symbolising economic success, these exterior spaces have become immersive interior worlds, full of screens packed full of light emitting diodes. Having a strong impact on the visual appearance of a city, these signs are dominated by multinational companies, advertising products and services that are knitted into our social fabric.

With high brand competition in these spaces, leading companies are encouraged to use the latest technologies and techniques to gain public attention. However due to the falling cost of the older technology; they are also becoming more common, making these environments richer and more diverse. This opens up large opportunities for the architects and master planners of today.

New urban architecture is starting to incorporate these advertisement requirements into media façades, allowing whole buildings to become illuminated screens. This is beginning to dramatically change the aesthetics of our cities. Multi-touch-point technologies, such as the augmented reality app Aurasma, are also beginning to have an impact on our experiences. With these environments classically disconnected from the public, this new technology is creating an interaction with the screens, making the spaces more personalised and integral to life.

Advertisement billboards have grown to become a dominant part of Piccadilly Circus. A unique place in London’s history, culture and heritage, they are considered one of the most iconic landmarks in the world. Piccadilly attracts 2 million weekly visitors, at all hours of the day; who spend £7.6BN each year.

The advertisements are becoming digitally interactive. Reminiscent of the physical Guinness Swiss cuckoo clock in the sixties, these screens have an instant impact as well as connecting people on multiple touch points. Successful campaigns from MacDonald’s, Burberry and Samsung interact with the crowds, making it not just a visual experience but also a personal one.

Piccadilly Circus succeeds in its balance of the existing architectural values of the junction, with commercial advertisement boards. Attention is fixed to one elevation, the public has space to reflect, and not be overpowered by the advertisements. Nevertheless the structure is still not embedded into the architecture; rather it is layered on top of it, temporary and aggressive rather than immersive and purposeful. 

Times Square’s electric screens and striking billboards are also one of the most sought after advertising locations in the world. On its busier days the junction can see pedestrian counts of over 460,000 with over 100,000 people entering the square later on at night between 7pm and 1am. The signage can expect nearly 1.5 million views each day. In times of festivities, such as New Years Eve, the television coverage distributes the screens to over one billion people worldwide. What it lacks in its simplicity of digital communication, it makes up with its physical illuminated billboards. The creative LED ribbons of the ABC “SuperSign” breaks the normality of rectangular advertisement and the unrivalled scale of the Walgreens sign impresses, at 17,000 square feet.

In the future, prices for LED screens will become cheaper, and so become more accessible to smaller firms. It will also open up more non-commercial content, with the price to the council being less. It is inevitable that new technology will be released that betters the current screens and is more desirable to large advertisement agencies. Movements into interactive advertising, across multiple touch points, will create environments of immersive opportunities. Augmented reality, Wi-Fi capabilities and smarter phones will enable the public to interact more with the illuminated screens. This new playful and public orientated style will create better atmospheres than the ones we see today, although potentially even more intrusive.

With these spaces increasing in frequency, opportunities could also be created for artists. Using the display resources to generate works of environmental art, reclaiming public space as cultural space.

In the future it is possible that advertisers will be liberated from the rectangular TV like shape and will be able to connect it to the physical space in meaningful and aesthetic ways. With advancements in 3D technology and bending flexible screens, this dream does not seem far away. For the existing architecture in the space it will allow for more considered positioning and care. It is now up to the architectural community to understand the importance and popularity of these areas. In the coming years they need to be implicated and updated in a more digitally literate way that can develop with new technology.

Jashko, S., 2007. Curator of urban screens Manchester 07: Interview with Luca B, 4 October.

Available at: www.ecopolis.org/a-new-public-medium [Accessed 21 September].

A New Public Medium?

Interview with Susanne Jaschko, curator of Urban Screens Manchester 07, that will be in Manchester from the 11th since the 14th of October, with lectures, performances, conferences about the pixel surfaces of our future cities.

­­

LB: What inspired you to think a project like Urban Screens? And how did you find people interested in it and infostructure to realize it? 
SJ: The Urban Screens event in Manchester is the second of its kind. The first one took place in Amsterdam in 2005 and was produced by the Institute of Network Culture. The conference happened at a time when it became apparent that technological development, in particular the higher resolution of LED screens and decreasing costs will result in a massive change of the visual urban landscape. For the first time these urban and public screens were recognised as a phenomenon of post-industrial societies around the globe. Now two years later, the development has not come to a halt but has increased in speed. While the prices for LED screens are constantly dropping, contemporary architecture is increasingly embracing the concept of the media façade, turning whole buildings into screens. Due to their transparency new screen technologies like Mediamesh even allow to be applied to historic buildings, opening up completely new possibilities to architects.
At the same time, both China and the UK are setting up an armada of LED screens for the Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012. Urban Screens will address the challenges which arise from this new public medium. I would argue that most screen operators and city councils have not yet fully understood the potentials and conditions of this medium and the specific architectural and social context it is embedded within. The Manchester Urban Screens Conference and art and events programme will try to identify these potentials, but also discuss the cultural responsibility which commercial operators, architects, urban planners and cities have.
Interestingly the BBC is one of the initiators of the Urban Screens Manchester event. The BBC has pioneered in setting up a network of public LED screens in the UK which don’t show commercial content at all. This is unique and ground-breaking. But the BBC is a TV broadcaster, so they have used these screens as a broadcast medium fore-mostly. Being independent from income made by commercial advertising but also being internationally leading in the non-commercial implementation and use of public screens it is in their natural interest to explore the possibilities for culture and community life further e.g. through enabling the up-coming conference.

LB: Is the city of Manchester really interested in promoting this architectural and perceptual evolution? 
SJ: First of all the City of Manchester is strongly supporting and co-funding USM, which already proves that they are really interested in the topic and aware of the challenges which inhere public screens, be it LED screens, large scale projection or animated building façades. As the world’s first industrial city, it has witnessed a quick transformation into a service orientated economy with new types of office and hotel buildings, Manchester was the first city in the UK to host a BBC Big Screen in the city centre back in 2003. Like many UK cities, which are doing well economically, the city grows constantly and is challenged to further improve the quality of urban life. I would wish that more city councils would become more proactive about urban screens. Giant posters, LED screens or media facades have a huge impact on the visual appearance of the city. Currently money seems to win over the aesthetics and the flood of commercial screens in our city centres seems unstoppable. To say it more clearly, I am not advocating the ban of public screens but I would argue that they have to be implemented aesthetically into the existing urban fabric. Also we have to find ways to avoid audiovisual battles for attention in the urban environment. Last but not least I would also like to see art funders and artists take a more active role in this development and to reclaim public space as cultural space.

LB: Are there any themes or commons tha emerge from the artists presented at Urban Screens? 
SJ: Of course, the question on screen aesthetics is one that has been posed by artists working in the urban realm. The Austrian artist Guenther Selichar for instance has extrapolated his concerns with colored screen surfaces to the public realm in several public art “interventions” which he has staged since 1993 on display at venues in New York City, Boston, Shanghai, China and various European cities. He will speak about this at the conference and will contribute a video to the art and events programme, which by and by breaks common expectations for the pleasant screen experience in pubic space. Our keynote speaker Jochen Gerz is renowned for his strong belief that public space is a platform for a heterogeneous society, which is often forgotten. This will be further discussed within the conference panels, one looking at screens as community interfaces and the other one posing the question how publicly accessible urban displays can and should be.

LB: I think that urban screens it can be a great vehicle for social promotion and partecipation and I’d love to see the big audiovisual billboards of the cities full of creative content, but besides events like Urban Screens how do you think urbans screens can show cultural content against the profits of advertising?
SJ: There is not one way or one solution to this problem. In a neo-liberal world nobody would stop the visual pollution that comes with advertising. Fortunately we still have not arrived in this society in Europe. So what we have to explore here is new models of economy which could also facilitate the production of artistic and community orientated content.
Screen operators are not opposed to artistic content in principal. However, I personally wonder why there are not more directions and restrictions coming from the city council. Public space is a cultural and communal space, so I would argue that commercial screen operators should be urged to show non-commercial content. In the future prices for screens technology will decrease and refinancing of screens will get easier which will hopefully open up more non-commercial content. Slowly architects and building owners will take responsibility for the content on their facades too. In this regard Urban Screens Manchester sets an important sign by focussing on the content rather than on the new technological developments. This conference will hopefully open up a critical debate and come up with some really good concepts instead of celebrating urban screens unaware of the problems which they cause.

LB: I can say I do really like the big moving images of the big screens, but what do you think about the visual pollution of the cities of the future? Or do you think that being a interactive audiovisual platform is the future of some cities? 
SJ: Although urban screens can be perceived as a global phenomenon, I think that we are only just starting to understand the cultural potentials which they bear. Due to economic limitations these screens today are mostly used for advertising or to broadcast other traditional screen content such as video art, short films or TV content. In the future I hope we’ll manage to liberate the urban screen from its rectangular TV like shape and to connect it to the physical space in meaningful and aesthetic ways. Hopefully this will go hand in hand with the development of new content formats. In Manchester we will present some interactive works with this aim, for instance the “2.4 Ghz homing pigeons” project in which the number of pigeons is controlled by the presence of pedestrians. The “15 x15” project opens up the screen for participation and show people’s video clips in a 15×15 square grid. But there is much more to see and experience and I hope that the Manchester weather will be favourable to us.