The Billboard Project
Yet Another Roadside Attraction
The Inspiration:
About four years ago, when Lamar Advertising first started installing digital billboards, I was driving past one such sign as they were running a screen test. They were the sort of stock pictures that come with the operating system on a personal computer: marbles, a bridge over a body of water at sunset, a field of flowers, and a back drop of a blue sky. While all of these photos were familiar, in fact stock wallpaper images on my pc, they carried a striking resonance when displayed on a billboard. I can attribute this affect to the simple deviation from advertising that created an element of the unexpected. Here was a space that normally tells you what to consume stripped of any such intent, giving viewers random images to enjoy. This has been an experience I’ve waned to replicate on some level and share with others.
The Project:
Both sides of a digital billboard have been privately acquired for a continuous period of twenty-four hours for the purpose of displaying sight specific work. The show will run from midnight on Friday, October 1, 2010 and will come to an end midnight Saturday, October 2, 2010. During this time pictures having nothing to do with advertising will be displayed. The images will cycle on a ten second interval and can be non-repeating for up to twelve hours. A variety of artists are being invited to contribute work to this roadside gallery entitled Yet Another Roadside Attraction. This will be a sort of vaudeville roadside gallery/show.
The Parameters:
Artists being invited to participate in Yet Another Roadside Attraction will be given a segment of time on a digital billboard of one hour where they can display art concepts geared toward this particular medium. The project will consist of twelve segments repeating once over a 24-hour period. Each segment has the capacity to display 360 different pictures over a 60-minute period, giving frames a ten second rotation. To lengthen the time an image is displayed, it would simply be repeated in ten second increments for the desired length of time. The digital billboards can be seen from cars passing by that will have visual contact with the canvas for twenty to thirty seconds (two to three images), and from spots under the billboards where people can stop and watch the images for as long as they like. Keeping this in mind, the most effective images of the project will work well in conjunction with one another and also as singular moments. This space is being rented out from Lamar Advertising who has a right to refuse images submitted for display. If there is any doubt as to whether or not the content of a submission will be accepted, the concept can presented for review. The requirements for image size and quality can be viewed in the jpg file named Image Parameters.
Images must be submitted no later than Monday, August 23, 2010 on CD, DVD, or jump drive and should be mailed to the following address:
The Billboard Project
Attn: David Morrison
3119 West Moore Street
Richmond, VA 23230
You may contact me with any questions at 804.648.2422.
Resources:
I have attached files of previous creative billboard endeavors as well as photos of the site location. The following link to Lamar’s website might also give you some helpful tips. HYPERLINK "http://www.lamaroutdoor.com/index.html" http://www.lamaroutdoor.com/index.html
Then click on products
Then click on Digital Displays
Then click on what is an
