Electric Signs
Icarus Films • 57m
Directed by Alice Arnold • Documentary • 2012 • 58 minutes
New screen-based sign systems are putting TV-style advertising into the public domain in cities around the globe. These electronic signs are re-shaping urban environments and re-defining areas of public space by intensifying the commercialization of the public sphere.
The film's narrator, an observer modeled on the critic Walter Benjamin, takes us on a journey through a variety of urban landscapes, examining public spaces and making connections between light, perception and the culture of attractions in today's consumer society.
The film is structured as a documentary essay in the spirit of city symphony films, and features footage in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York, and other cities around the world. Also featured are interviews with prominent lighting designers; advertising and marketing professionals; urban sociologists and visual culture experts; and community activists.
"Electric Signs provides an incisive guide to the seductive blight of the increasingly ubiquitous intrusions of public space by blinding private media. The film lucidly unpacks the transformation of the city by this synesthetic tsumami and points to grave dangers ahead."—Michael Sorkin, Director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York
Up Next in Icarus Films
-
Eternity Has No Door of Escape
Directed by Arthur Borgnis • Documentary • 2017 • 80 minutes
"Outsider art" challenges established historical categories and transcends artistic movements. A translation of the French term art brut, a phrase coined by the painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet in the aftermath of World War II, this ...
-
Everything Must Fall
Directed by Rehad Desai • Documentary • 2018 • 85 minutes
Can a diverse group of college kids find common ground with their school’s faculty and janitorial staff to bring the school administration to its knees? Can they banish a nation’s crippling student debt, guarantee workers benefits and liv...
-
Family Business
Directed by Tom Cohen • Documentary • 1982 • 90 minutes
Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.
Howie Snyder is an archetype: a retired Marine colonel in his mid 40s, he is an American entrepreneur struggling to make his business succeed.
Howie's Shakey's Pizza franchise in Muncie, Indiana em...
