New York Street Advertising Takeover #2: Interview with Jordan Seiler
Today’s post is by Carolyn Tripp who previously interviewed Jordan in May 2009.
Jordan Seiler and the many participants of New York Street Advertising Takeover (NYSAT, a sister project of PublicAdCampaign) have completed yet another round of murals on top of the illegally posted billboards on the island of Manhattan in NYC. This campaign was largely in protest against NPA Outdoor, one of the city’s largest contractor for billboards and large-scale advertisements.
The first NYSAT took place in April 2009. By reclaiming the billboard space illegally used by NPA Outdoor, the NYSAT team turned many illegal billboards into painted murals, ready-made wheat pastes, and stencils. In its scope and execution, it was a huge undertaking, covering dozens of billboards in a matter of hours. NPA Outdoor was of course less than thrilled with their new makeover. Through their own staff, they called the work to the attention of the NYPD, who in turn asked a handful of artists to leave as they were still completing the work. Some were vigilant and returned to finish the job, resulting in a total of three arrests. The charges, however, were eventually dropped and NPA Outdoor failed to pursue the issue any further, clearing the artists and participants of all charges. All-in-all, the first billboard blitz had been a success.
Bravely, NYSAT tried for a round two this past October with yet another negative reaction from the NPA Outdoor team. Now able to speak about the details and his plans for future interventions, Illegalsigns.ca catches up with NYSAT creator Jordan Seiler from his home in New York to discuss what went down during version 2.0.
Carolyn Tripp: You have several people, the majority of them New Yorkers, on your roster willing to create murals and join the issue of illegal signage in NYC. Have you ever considered doing something more specific with the visual aspect of the project, or are you just willing to let artists have the freedom to create whatever they choose? (As opposed to a specific protest message, a slogan, etc?)
Jordan Seiler: I have been asked by several people as to why we chose to include the artists to participate in the project. After all, the locations initially being painted white were significant gestures in terms of calling out the illegality of the NPA advertisements.
It’s been suggested that the artistic aspect of the murals were in some way muddling that statement and made people misconstrue our intentions with the idea of self-promotion, as opposed to making the issue of illegal signage front and center. Suddenly, it came to light that we had ulterior motives. I tend to disagree with this perspective, but also understand it as a valid complaint. I think the actual “protest message” was built into the painted white billboard. Seeing one of those locations white when you are used to the advertising is very striking. The public can understand that action has been taken, and that was also reason that I found a specific slogan to be largely unnecessary.
That said, the idea to have artists seemed like a natural thing to do. Many of the NYSAT participants were artists, many of whom were street-based, and were used to stealthily creating work. We imagined the art productions would be an opportunity for them to join in the protest with their own interpretation of the spaces provided. I thought the celebratory aspect of creating work on the street was a fun part of the first NYSAT intervention, and I wanted to do it again. Many people spent hours at their locations and enjoyed a day of interacting with the public while making the work. That also helped spread the message about NPA Outdoor’s illegal activity. It’s not only important to get rid of the signage, but to create a conduit through which the populace is able to curate accordingly and generally use the public space as they see fit.
Carolyn Tripp: It’s possible that the NYPD might arrest an artist or white-washer for painting over a billboard or “damaging private property” without a valid city permit, but NPA Outdoor seemed more feisty and vigilant in October, the second time NYSAT was attempted. Can you speak about what went down that day? Did they have more NYSAT information, or did they simply have more people watching over the billboards in case you decided to do the project again?
Jordan Seiler: To this day, I’m not exactly sure if actually prosecuting someone for whitewashing illegal billboards in NYC would stand up in court. There are many examples of expressive property disobedience where minor digressions from the law are tolerated in an effort to out some kind of larger evil.
What I do know is that in both NYSAT projects, a total of nine participants were arrested after calls were made by NPA employees for the “damaging of private property.” Out of those nine, two were caught in the act of white-washing, and the seven others were adorning the blanks ads with their artwork. Interestingly, and despite many NPA employees being on site whenever the police did showed up, no discussion was ever allowed regarding the legality of the original advertisement. There were numerous attempts to explain this fact to police officers, but the artists and participants were told to refer to the Department of Building regarding our complaints. It was not their job, apparently, to know whether or not those advertisements were illegal. It became very clear that the police could not grasp the fact that despite holding paints and brushes, we weren’t graffiti artists by the legal definition, even though the charges were formally named, “Possession of Graffiti Materials.” This was a civil protest done in broad daylight in hopes of bringing this citywide issue onto the radar.
NPA knew that what they were doing was (and still is) illegal, and that their accusations against those who were originally arrested couldn’t hold up in court. They also failed to sign the deposition in order to finalize the charges after the arrests were made. They had 90 days to do this and the cases were eventually dismissed as though they had never happened. This was extremely frustrating for a couple of reasons, especially for those involved in the initial arrests. Not only had the City of New York failed to listen in any way its residents, but it had allowed an advertising company, one who posts signs illegal at the public’s expense, to additionally protect itself by making tax payers foot the bill for the arrest, detainment, and arraignment process before the cases were thrown away.
As far as NPA’s response the second time around and their much swifter reaction time, I can only speculate. It is my understanding that because this project was happening as a repeat performance, once a single billboard was seen being white-washed, they assumed the whole project was happening again. On October 25th, the day of the second project, several employees that I spoke to told me they had been called in that day. I assume this means that all those employees who were not working that day were asked to come in and clean up the artwork that was already put up, in addition to calling the police.
Carolyn Tripp: Considering the frustration around the lack of action on NYC’s part to acknowledge the actions of NPA Outdoor, in addition to your protest, how do you intend to proceed? Are other cities in your radar as well?
Jordan Seiler: Well there are a lot of options open at this point. One thing we know we need to do is find solid legal representation. The arrests resulted in zero action because we were unable to put any pressure on the city through that process. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m assuming there is some way of framing these arrests that would create a debate around the larger issue of NPA’s illegal advertising. I am hoping to get chosen for a residency led by The Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts program that will begin very soon. I also plan to plan out how we might be better prepared, legally speaking, for the next NYSAT.
I’m in talks with other cities about other possible city-wide actions. We have strong support in LA, San Francisco, and Toronto so you never know where we will pop up next.
The opportunity to recreate this type of public protest behavior in other cities and show people that action can be taken anywhere is too good to pass up. Ultimately, the advertising is one thing, but spreading the knowledge that people are able to participate in the shaping of their own cities is the much broader goal of the PublicAdCampaign and NYSAT projects.
