itourist?

is there anything heroic about a billboard? probably not. not in the west. it remains for many the apotheosis of banality. in contrast to the art object – that which is explicitly so, an ‘Art object’ i mean – the position occupied by the billboard in the symbolic hierarchy of the visual is way down there. although not exclusively commercial, the billboard site is pure commerce. a pass-by event. yet despite its ephemerality, its ‘forgetability’, the billboard remains closely regulated. in stamford hill, for instance, it is forbidden – at least by JC Deceaux and Clear Channel – to erect billboards that show any flesh. presumably to avoid offending the ultra-orthodox jewish community. In the czech republic you are not allowed to show anything that refers to cigarettes, alcohol, politics, sex and ‘jenis’ (!?). and then there’s benetton’s infamous baby not to mention sophie dahl. masturbating, apparently. the furore over the baby picture always fascinated me. a salient reminder not only of the codes and conventions that govern the production of the ‘street’, but also the ways in which images of women are often unconsciously regulated, strangled at birth. in 1992 when the benetton image appeared on bilboards in britain the advertising standards authority received so many complaints about it; a bloody newborn still attached to its absent mother – whose body we are refused by the crop of the image – that it advised the advertiser to withdraw it. was it really the image of a traumatised (i.e. just born) baby that was so objectionable, or perhaps, in fact, the image of the mother, which is not present but which is easily imagined? in the throws of birth, blood, shit and sweat. naomi she is not. the billboard is a sacred space (ripe for play), easily defiled (if only for a very short space of time), thanks to the indirect nature of the conditions of regulation. the billboard companys’ relationship with the billboard image is often quite cursory. blase, just like the passerby’s?