[Reader-list] photographs of advertising in the public spaces of ahmedabad (a collection)

[Prayas Abhinav]

Hi all, 
 Here is my May posting -
 * an introduction to the now complete photo-documentation of the 
public-space advertisements in Ahmedabad
* links to the photographs (feedback is welcome and needed !)
 I have (on Vivek's suggesting) re-organized all my photographs by their 
location in Ahmedabad and have provided maps of Ahmedabad on which I have 
marked them. I hope these give you a better idea of the "where" of these 
photos and conveys the "concentration" of the advertisements more clearly. 
 The next steps are : 
-- making a final selection of 50-60 photographs, 
-- writing poems (based on these photographs) which comment and convey my 
stance towards advertisements / advertising clearly,
-- a comparitive study of the content of the advertisements, the agencies 
which create them and the locations where they are finally released.
 -------------------------------------------->>
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PHOTOGRAPHS 
  
I started doing these photographs with a few threads / directions guiding 
me.

My city is quite profusely full of advertisement. I started out with a 
doubt. Do advertisements make promises to me - promise of attaining a 
certain ideal, simplistic lifestyle, on consuming their product - a promise 
which they do not fulfill. Do these promises blur the boundaries between the 
actual and the generalized ideal flouted in these ads.

I started working towards exploring this by photographing instances of 
advertising, documenting advertisement in their varied forms. Mainly - 
hoardings, banners, wall-painted ads and entire-building-covers. I read some 
material about the advertising industry, the form and language of 
advertising, adbusting and anti-advertising agencies / activists. I explored 
this material to understand if there could be something empirical about the 
advertising industry which defined the way it worked and affected us. But 
that effort was taking me nowhere.

What is important, I understood, is not to find reasons to dismiss or 
condemn the industry - but to have a perceptive relationship with it. It is 
a popular and rewarding occupation which has been flexible and responsive to 
market needs. It has constantly evolved in terms of its role and function.

In these photographs I sometimes see advertisements as encroaching cultural 
produce - a language, which is successful in its clarity of mimicking and 
following trends in pop culture.

The absence of variation in mood, style, themes and advertised products 
speaks of the affordability of the medium. Traditional advertising 
(non-internet) has no space for sub-cultures of the market. Advertising 
costs as much as the power / position which it can secure in the market for 
you.

I have tried to appreciate "publicity constructions"/hoardings as monumental 
sculptural entities. Artistic objects which have taken on a peculiar role in 
the space around them.

I have attempted to map Ahmedabad in terms of views from different points in 
the city. My photographs summarize my experience as a person trying to 
ascertain the visual character of his city. What do hoardings look like, 
with sunlight falling on them softly across the sides ? What do they speak 
to you, when they do not have any advertisements to speak for ? When you 
stand so close to them, that you can only see them slide into the sky, what 
do they seem to be ?

Beyond having an impact on us - catching us off-gaurd, in vulnerable 
positions - what do they do ?

If experiencing advertisements all the time, a cost we have to pay, for 
getting things cheaper than we are supposed to - what encourages us to pay 
the price ?

There is a difference in the way we react to intrusions / encroachments, 
advertisements when we are in a space we hold as private and one which we 
feel is public or community. A public space - whose public we cannot connect 
with or do not care for can have a character which we do not allow to touch 
us intimately, which we do not judge or try to arrange in a way coherent 
with us and our values.

I have explored in these photographs the way our heritage monuments co-exist 
with the advertisements; the way temples and other spiritual and 
non-commercial spaces co-exist with them.

These photographs show how we have learnt to encounter ads with apathy and 
advertisers have learnt to talk to speak to our apathetic selves.

-------------------------------------------->>

LINKS TO THE PHOTOGRAPHS (location-based): 
http://www.prayasabhinav.net/section34.html 

-------------------------------------------->>
-------------------------------------------->>

Will start posting the poems I am writing soon, 

Hope you find this interesting, 

-- 
Prayas Abhinav, 
http://www.crimsonfeet.org
Personal web: http://www.prayasabhinav.net
-------------------------------------------------<<>>
Mobile: +91 9227234979
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050526/657d6fd1/attachment.html