ADIOS ADVERTISING.

Just finished reading an incredible story about how South America's largest and most prosperous city, Sao Paolo, has just taken the unprecedented step of banning ALL outdoor advertising, including billboards and neon signs... This has been done under the pretext of reducing "visual pollution". Not quite sure if this is a good or bad thing, some ads these days are definitely creative enough to be considered a form of art that enlivens our surroundings, but the majority are dull variations for cliched cigarette campaigns, or even worse massive blown-up photos of Mr. Bean going on holiday (why does everyone, or even anyone, outside of England think he's funny?).

Anyway, when it comes down to it beauty is subjective, so defining "visual pollution" would seem to be rather difficult - we see people every day wearing outfits we'd classify as visual pollution... And any move towards such a controlled 'utopia' is always a bit scary. In a free, democratic, capitalist society, isn't it a given that you should have the right to boast about how good your Tampons are in huge 20 foot high letters to all passers-by? We think so.

{link to International Herald Tribune article}