Los Angeles will soon have the tallest building on the West Coast, the Wilshire Grand Hotel, with a digital skin of LED graphics, visible for miles in all directions. What does it mean to express ideas – artistic or commercial – on a large scale? What do these large images do to public space?
Los Angeles has a long and tortured relationship to images on buildings. The City of Los Angeles is still negotiating the why, where and how of public visual expression. With a new Mural Ordinance in place, what are the limits of "free expression?" With a comprehensive sign ordinance stuck endlessly in committee, will more than a thousand un-permitted billboards be grandfathered to resolve litigation? How do we sort out the issues of free speech, art, commercial messaging, graffiti, architectural lighting, guerilla actions and billboard "takeovers?"
And how much longer will the public confuse the Hollywood sign with advertising - or is it?
Moderator
Panelists
Meredith Drake Reitan, Assistant Dean of The Graduate School of USC is the author ofRhetoric Of Representation: Planning Los Angeles’ Civic Space, 1909 - 2009.
Panelists
Our panelists bring very different visions to WUF:
David Agnew, President of StandardVision, a company that produces innovative turn-key LED media facades and architectural advertising solutions and is designing the LED displays for the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Downtown LA.
Vincent Bertoni, currently Pasadena's Director of Planning and Community Development, helped craft LA's pending sign ordinance as LA's top Deputy Planning Director.
Jordan Seiler, guerilla artist and activist, is president of PublicAdCampaign, known for "ad takeovers" of billboards as canvases for art. He speaks widely on outdoor advertising and its relationship to public space.
David Agnew, President of StandardVision, a company that produces innovative turn-key LED media facades and architectural advertising solutions and is designing the LED displays for the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Downtown LA.
Vincent Bertoni, currently Pasadena's Director of Planning and Community Development, helped craft LA's pending sign ordinance as LA's top Deputy Planning Director.
Jordan Seiler, guerilla artist and activist, is president of PublicAdCampaign, known for "ad takeovers" of billboards as canvases for art. He speaks widely on outdoor advertising and its relationship to public space.
