Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Val Zavala: Over the past few years, we’ve done a lot of stories about all those billboards
that mar the L.A. skyline. But nothing like this!
Madeleine Brand: An artist by the name of Stephen Glassman has a plan to turn some of
those signs into – well – art! And not just any kind of art, but natural, growing,
sustainable art. He’s put his idea on Kickstarter, and he’s already raised over $100,000. Take
a look.
Stephen Glassman: Hi. I’m Steven Glassman, and I’m the artist and creator of Urban
Air. All my life I’ve worked in bamboo. I’ve always worked in the public realm.
When the Northridge quakes hit and the freeways fell, the billboards remained. And that’s
when they first caught my eye.
And if you get this right technically and environmentally, then this is the kind of
thing that could be rolled out anywhere. My intention is to put a crack in the urban skyline.
So that when people are compressed, squeezed, stuck in traffic and they look up and they
see an open space of fresh air that allows them to take a breath, feel themselves as
humans, and conceive of what might be.
Madeleine Brand: And what you see there is a mockup of one of his billboards on the Westside.
He plans to have many of them sprouting up all over Los Angeles.
Val Zavala: That is so cool but beware. You know how bamboo can take over. So I predict
coming to a theater near you “Attack of the Bamboo Billboards.” Coming up.
Brand: I love how they hang. It’s like hanging gardens. Gardens of Babylon.