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"L.A. vision: a towering sign," by David Zahniser (LA Times) - Astani Enterprises Inc

File this under "life imitates art"? There's a fascinating battle happening in LA over whether or not Sonny Astani, businessman and developer, should be permitted to install a new kind of LED-generated image, 12 stories above the street and 14 stories tall, on the side of his 33-story condo building currently under construction in downtown LA.

The inspiration? Opening scenes in Blade Runner of downtown LA, showing "a skyscraper-sized advertisement portraying a Japanese woman smiling before popping a snack into her mouth. Astani says an image, such as that of a flying sea gull, could now even travel from one building to the next."

I have to admit this sounds really cool, but I can see why many factions in LA would oppose this, too. We're all familiar with the really bright illuminated advertisements -- even Victoria has a small version of one, installed outside the arena on Blanshard at Caledonia. It's bright, too bright. But Astani proposes a much more modulated, artistic, and dimmed level of lighting. If the images could look as subtle -- yet powerful -- as Blade Runner's, it could work, but there's no garantee, that if permitted, subsequent developers would follow in that "artistic" style.

Another aspect is this: the proposal, if it's art, also calls into question just how intrusive public art should be in public space. Does it have a right to be so intrusive as to be impossible to ignore? Can I, as a citizen, be obliged to register public art -- and admittedly, it would be impossible not to register this project?

Is part of what captures my attention/ imagination regarding this project its uncanny fusion of subtlety and assault, packaged as visual stimulus?

Another question: is this an art form that expresses a corporate and anti-pedestrian city ("...neighborhood anchored by Staples Center and L.A. Live, the hotel and entertainment complex that includes the recently opened Nokia Theatre"), fitting for LA where people don't walk anyway (but just wait: it'll show up soon enough on the very v

Tags: astani, advertising, billboards, outdoor_installations, public_art, public_space, los_angeles on 2008-05-26 -All Annotations (0) -About

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an animated sign 14-stories tall on the 33-story condominium
project he is building in downtown L.A.
The proposed sign would loom 12 stories above the sidewalk at
9th and Figueroa streets, facing the 110 Freeway. And city planners
say it would represent a first in the city's residential architecture
-- a sheet of light-emitting screens spaced close enough to form
a vast electronic image, yet far enough apart to allow occupants
to look outside.
Astani's proposal is only the latest controversial effort to
bring massive advertising and colorful light shows to the neighborhood
anchored by Staples Center and L.A. Live, the hotel and entertainment
complex that includes the recently opened Nokia Theatre.

Civic boosters promised two years ago that L.A. Live would transform
Figueroa's entertainment district into Times Square West -- a
California counterpart to the bright lights and in-your-face
advertising seen at Broadway and 42nd Street in Manhattan.
Although much of L.A. Live is under construction, the district
around Staples already has some of those colorful lights, including
the red squares that percolate like soda bubbles on the exterior
of the Met Lofts and the spotlights at Nokia that strafe the
sky,
at least two high-rises could be partly covered with rows of
tiny panels embedded with LEDs, or light-emitting diodes -- a
concept viewed by some at City Hall as the next frontier in outdoor
advertising.
In November, the City
Council approved Fig Central, a hotel and condominium complex
across from Staples Center that will have at least one 330-foot-long
band of animated advertising. And at least seven more electronic
signs are planned for the rest of L.A. Live, according to city
officials.

The courtyard outside Nokia Theatre has 12 LED signs -- enormous
screens that intersperse concert footage with advertisements
for mobile phones and Coca-Cola. The theater is adorned with
more screens and billboards, a fact that disappoints some neighbors.
"It might actually be beautiful," she said. "It
might actually be art, as opposed to just ads."
The billboard question seemed finally to have been answered
in 2002, when then-Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, after 14 years
of trying, won passage of a ban on outdoor advertising. But that
law also contained a provision allowing the creation of "supplemental
use districts," places like Hollywood, where billboards
would be permitted in large numbers.
he argues that his LED displays should
not be considered billboards.

To make the images less blinding, the signs would have a brightness
of only 1,200 candelas at night -- roughly one-sixth the intensity
of the signs found at L.A. Live, Astani said. And because the
movements of his LED sign would be slower than the images on
a television screen, Astani contends, his 14-story sign would
be graceful, not gaudy.

"We don't want to create a monster," Astani said. "If
this is bright or intrusive, we cannot sell the condominiums.
It will have to be so unique and unobtrusive that people will
be proud to live behind it."
If approved, the signs would contain artistic content during
10% of their operation, with another 10% devoted to community
announcements, according to Astani's proposal. The sign rules
also would dictate the speed with which the animated images change.
Add Sticky Note
- Only 10% artistic content sounds pretty mingy...
  posted by lampertina on 2008-05-26
Most of the companies installing the new lights have ties to
City Hall. L.A. Live builder Anschutz Entertainment Group has
given $485,000 to causes backed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The developer of Fig Central has given $100,000; Astani has given
$150,000.

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