Junkspace is political

 In response to: Learning form Las Vegas and Junkspace 

The title of this weeks topic of discussion ‘Junkspace vs Public Space’, I think encompasses what we as humans deal with today as constant consumers of capitalist advertising. Junkspace is architecture that facilitates the worst of capitalism in my opinion.

Koolhaas says that traffic is junkpsace, and the highway is junkspace. Then according to Denise Scott Brown, the billboards on the highway are the architecture. 

“Junkspace is the body double of space, a territory of impaired vision, limited expectation, reduced earnestness.” 

In the French city of Lille, protestors are fighting back against the bombardment of advertising on the city streets. One nurse said “I’ve been treating sick people in emergency rooms for 11 years, but this is about treating a sick society,” he said, as he reached up with other protesters to tape the paper in place. “When you walk down the street, how can you feel happy if you’re constantly being reminded of what you don’t have? Advertising breaks your spirit, confuses you about what you really need and distracts you from real problems, like the climate emergency.”

Every bit of downtime in the urban environment feels like an opportunity to put people in front of an advertisement screen. In the past, protest efforts were focused on guerrilla tactics with spray cans, but the digital world is taking over in major cities. Defacing advertisements with a black marker cost one protester 900 Euro after a passerby called the police on him. 

Clipped from a 2019 article by The Guardian: 

The French firm Mediatransports, which runs 1,250 video screens in French rail stations, as well as 700 on the Paris metro – including 150 in Paris’s Gare du Nord alone – said digital screens were excellent at reaching commuters. “They generate more revenue than paper ads, because they can quickly adapt to advertisers’ needs – changing a message for the exact time of day or even the weather.”

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Paris is also soul-searching about advertising. Early last year, the capital’s more than 1,600 advertising signs – large grey paper advertising panels on pavements – disappeared for around 18 months during a protracted process to find a new contract. No one noticed their absence, but when they were gradually put back this autumn — the same number in virtually the same spots — many residents complained of an advertising onslaught.

“I’ve never seen so many people annoyed about advertising. People are coming up to me saying this sign is taking up half the pavement,” said the long-time anti-advertising campaigner Thomas Bourgenot, of Résistance à l’Agression Publicitaire in Paris. 

In Lille, Martine Cosson, 74, a retired pediatrician among the anti-ad protesters, said: “Digital video screens in public spaces have an effect on our brains, whether we want them to or not, so planners and politicians should answer to that.”

In conclusion: Junkspace is profitable, it does not serve the people, it interrupts the public space and it will continue to be a disruptive element of urban environments across the globe.