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Tidying up the city's celestial clutter
Bird pit stops: Only two billboards dot a skyline in the Pejompongan area, Central Jakarta, a handful compared to the number of billboards in areas like Grogol in West Jakarta
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Bird pit stops: Only two billboards dot a skyline in the Pejompongan area, Central Jakarta, a handful compared to the number of billboards in areas like Grogol in West Jakarta. JP/P.J. Leo
Jakartans might be relieved of the clutter of campaign posters as the legislative election draws to a close. But, as the posters and banners come down, people are still subjected to an endless bombardment of billboards.
Pictures of androgynous looking models in tight blazers, a man sporting dreadlocks and a bored gaze, a cup of coffee, a touch screen cellular phone, and an endless stream of fair-skinned slim women, are plastered all over the city's gigantic billboards.
Each one luring passersby to spend money on various products including cigarettes, cleaning products, mineral water, cellular phones and cellular providers, credit cards, magazines, cosmetics and slimming products.
The Jakarta administration recently said it was changing its spatial planning regulations for outdoor advertising, from being revenue oriented to city aesthetic oriented. Deputy Governor Prijanto said the city was planning to tidy up billboards in the main thoroughfares, Jl. Sudirman and Jl. Thamrin.
Prijanto said there was also a possibility that a number of areas in which billboards are permitted, would be changed.
Currently, there are 163 points in the city where billboards are allowed to stand.
Graphic artist and city observer Irwan Ahmett said any attempt to regulate outdoor advertising to improve the city aesthetic, was welcome.
According to Irwan, the intrusion of advertising in public spaces in Jakarta has reached a point of saturation.
Despite a bylaw regulating the placement of billboards, tens of thousands of illegal billboards are erected in the city.
Every year, the City Public Order Agency records high numbers of illegal billboards.
In 2007, the agency recorded more than 60,000 illegal billboards, while as of November 2008, there have been more than 50,000.
"Billboards in principal are boards with a bill. They are used to place a message, and people pay to have their billboards in strategic places.
However, when there's economic power to buy space without being supported by sound spatial planning, then space can be bought everywhere. It can grow very radically," Irwan said.
"In the end, people feel confined by them as they change the landscape of a city.
It means people have limited views in the city and face obstacles in seeing the sky and the sunset," he said.
Irwan said billboards could actually add value to a city if their placements was in context of the area.
In the city's art festival ARENA: Jakarta Biennale 2009, Irwan curated and coordinated a billboard project that involved artists subverting the traditional meaning of billboards by transforming their meanings, provoking viewers to think twice about their surroundings.
Catholic priest and lecturer Romo Mudji Sutrisno from the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, mentioned the project in his general lecture on City and Culture last week, saying the project was a good way to remind Jakartans about the context of space in the city.
As an example, during the project in February, people passing the now-historic first modern mall in Indonesia - Sarinah Department Store on Jl. MH Thamrin, Central Jakarta - saw a billboard sporting an old photograph of a woman wearing the traditional kebaya and sarong, holding an umbrella. Artist Angki Purbandono used the anonymous portrait as an imagined image of former first president Sukarno's nanny, the inspiration behind the department store's name.
Mudji said people from the creative sector of advertising agencies should consider the context of the area their billboard sare placed. "However, to do that, one should understand the history of the city," he said.
According to Irwan, the advertising agency's creative people would be up to the challenge, as they always look for creative ways to produce messages. "However, it still depends on the people with money behind them," he said.
"The current style is just copy and paste, shallow creative thinking.
These people don't have an understanding of the city. I think it's necessary that advertising agencies become braver in their approach to placing billboards in context," he said.
Secretary General of Aspperindo Sudaryono said he hoped any new regulations on outdoor advertising would not hurt business.
"We hope regulation will not dampen creativity.
We could go in the direction of Las Vegas with many neon sign advertisements," he said.
The association has 68 members, mostly in Jakarta.
Herlambang Setyanto a member of the association said they have many ideas for outdoor advertising but they need the city administration's approval on them. "Advertisements don't have to be big billboards. There's always the risk of them falling down when it rains," he said.
