Tunnel Vision

Cnet has an interesting article about the latest trend in advertising -- using the blank (or dark) walls of subway tunnels to display short commercials. One of the companies mentioned in the ad, is the Winnipeg- based Sidetrack, whose clients now include London's Heathrow Express train, Boston's T, and Rio de Janiero's Metro.

For those of us fascinated by the ways old media reappear in modern guises, the description of Sidetrack's system is fascinatingly cinematic -- or perhaps zoetrope-like might be better: Here's an example of one in action -- from the BART train in San Francisco.



The tunnels are equipped with a row of screens. As the subway leaves the station, it trips an infrared light which begins the commercial. The film speed is supposed to run in conjunction with the speed of the train. The company calls their work "motion picture advertising" that relies on the viewers "persistence of vision" to assist in the illusion of motion. Except this time the people are doing the moving. So you can add the space between stations to the growing list of media "windows" and start theorizing about subways as projection apparatuses. I feel an article coming on....

On the subject of old media in new media, see Charles Acland's new edited collection, Residual Media.