Page 384
Billboard near Santa Fe, New Mexico (1974)part of Reggio's
publicity campaign against governmental invasion of privacy.
Sunday supplement. We had hot air balloons (that's a big thing in Albuquerque) with eyes draped on them.
MacDonald:
How did you fund this campaign?
Reggio:
We went through traditional Left foundation sources, people who were interested in social justice.
MacDonald:
What were the billboards like?
Reggio:
We had several different kinds, actually. We tried to use nonverbal communication. We had analyzedas best we could, albeit from a great distancethe nature of billboard advertising, and we found that really it was not competitive; it was all pretty much the same. So we designed billboards that were in diametric opposition to most billboards, which gave us a new kind of recognition. Usually, if you're passing a billboard, you have anywhere from seven to fourteen seconds to have some recognition of it. Because our billboards were so unusual and because they were on main arteries in high-traffic-density areas, they stuck out. In fact, we tried to put them next to other boards so their difference would have a real effect, a
conscious
effect. One of our billboards had a huge eye on it; that one was particularly effective. I'd sit behind the billboards with some of my colleagues and check out the drivers; we could
see
that we were having an impact on people.
MacDonald:
[Reggio shows me a photograph of one of the bill-