When I was in North Korea they did have an advertisement for a car which was made IIRC in conjunction with Fiat I think.

Actually here's an advertisement for the car.

North Korea is a paradise of human joy and a beautiful example of how wonderful life can be without capitalism if we only allow the state to control all aspects of life. However, I heard a rumor the intellectual elite travel to Cuba for their health care.

I can't believe that only clicked now -- as someone interested in urban spaces, I had never really understood how I take for granted (read: absorb) the colours and movement of ads in my image of the city.

Today my mind opened a little bit. Thanks, Sociological Images! The more you know!

If they put up lots of art instead, I could really get behind that ad-free aesthetic... (well, and if they got rid of the censorship and oppression and disappearances and all that, too.) It's refreshing not to see ads, although I think the cities need a little more color, personally.

Such a cheerful place.

Vermont is billboard-free. And not at all drab.

I'm far more stunned at the complete and utter lack of graffiti, to be honest

And the utter lack of traffic.

I had a similar observation on my trip to Belarus last summer. The countryside, which is largely a stunning idyll of wild flowers, acres of forest and wooden cottages, was there to be enjoyed. The billboards were conspicuous by their absence. I thought it made it a lot more beautiful and it was a visual holiday, of sorts. The occasional ads or banners were strictly political (promoting national unity in a way that seemed funny to a foreigner) but on the whole there were few enough not to blight the landscape.

Which leads me to think, how does the experience of not seeing oversexualized photoshopped bodies selling most everything affect self-image in these contexts?

Actually, Pyongyang will sometimes have ads for state-made products, like the Fiat car mentioned above in the comments.

I'm most intrigued, from a sociological standpoint, about how much money and resources is spent to spruce up Pyongyang at the expense of anyone not living in the "party center." The Kims prioritize their millions on the military and meaningless sculptures before actually feeding their people.

Ahh, yes, when I think "utopia", North Korea is the first thing that pops up in my head.

I think this is what Times Square used to look like.

I've been living in Arcata, California for the last few years and there aren't many outdoor advertisements there either (all the fun of North Korea without the government repression!) Since I canceled my cable I only see ads online now. I'm amazed when I go other places how many new products have come out that I don't know about.

A headline with "North Korea" and "utopia"?

Lisa's homework is to go read a history of the Arduous March, and feel really guilty about that headline.

I don't know...I would calm down incredibly if I was there.

What does the traffic officer do all day?

The woman riding down the escalator with the bright yellow bouquet is clearly a subversive and should be placed under surveillance immediately.

What does the traffic officer do all day?

Figure out ways of dealing with their cognitive dissonance, no doubt. Or perhaps reading Orwell's 1984 for its inspiring home decorating tips.

During the late GDR years, older apartment buildings and newer functionalist developments in East Berlin had notoriously grim facades. The first word that came to outsiders' minds when describing the Iron Curtain side of the city was "grey." Several of the main boulevards (particularly Frankfurter and Landsberger Allee) looked quite similar to the photos above.

But after the German unification, an aesthetic rebellion swept through East Berlin, with garish bright-colored paint appearing on apartment towers in still-neglected and bleak neighborhoods at the city's fringes. Orange, salmon, yellow, teal, or whatever seems to have been on sale at the paint store, all brightness and no balance. The optimism in the colors and the new makes the buildings look even more depressing. Example: http://www.mhwk.de/mhwk_blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/marzahn.jpg

And the new crop of mini-malls with giant eye-piercing red logos doesn't help much.

I agree with those who say cities need color, but where the color comes from makes a huge difference. Varied architectural texture, trees and bushes, tilework, strung lights, and even hanging laundry (the unofficial flag of Lisbon), all make a place look fresh and alive to the eye. On the other hand, billboards and neon logos and flat monotone surfaces just sort of scream at the senses.

North Korea, Best Korea!

Le Corbusier's dream came true :D

There are no "billboards", strictly speaking, but billboards are just a particular form of propaganda, and it will come as no surprise that there's gobs of propaganda in the DPRK. In these photographs alone you can see the revolutionary slogan signs along the streets of Pyongyang, a revolutionary mural visible through the subway window, some posters tacked to outdoor walls, the slogan posted above the quarry, the portrait of KIS over the train station, and the social status pins that people wear. The language of propaganda in the DPRK is different from the US, just as the spoken language is different.

The people in that subway picture look so lifeless.

I had my own experience with ads this summer; after coming back from a country that has very few billboards to Los Angeles, I was absolutely excited and enthralled by all the advertisements. Even though they were mostly for, like, the same 3 things, just the idea of billboards billboards everywhere made me so happy to be back. They represent everything (good and bad, but I was harping on the good) that comes along with America: access to infrastructure, all the products I could imagine, cultures from all over the world, the freedom to put almost anything you want on a giant sign...

Even though a lot of the billboards were for things I don't like about American culture (Lap-Band, really?), the billboards themselves represent a lot that I DO love about the life here.

So the fact that North Korea, in part because they don't have a lot of those things (the products, the freedom, etc.), also doesn't have billboards, just makes me again have an appreciation for advertisements and America, warts and all. (Of course, "America" here applies to a lot of countries, but I'm harping on my own.)

It looks pretty bleak and grey, but I think this has less to do with a lack of advertising and more to do with the photographer. They've chosen some pretty monotonous subjects, have emphasised space, used repeated lines in composition, and have shot all the photos so they're dark.

I'm sure any city can look similarly dull when captured by a photographer intent on creating that effect.

And, to contrast, I think they could have easily taken a myriad of similar photos in better light, with more dynamic subjects and gotten a very different feel out of the photos.

It all looks very lifeless and boring.

This is not a sociological comment, so apologies: 

"The images in the slide show give us a peak into this world without ads:"

I think you mean "peek". 

It is so odd to see images of a city with no advertisements.  The majority of us are so used to being constantly bombarded with images, videos, and other various advertisements, it's almost refreshing to see that places exist where there aren't billboards on every city block.  Some may say that these images make the city appear dark and bleak, and therefore, unwelcoming or unattractive.  However, how welcoming is a place that is covered with flashing lights and thousands of advertisements?

 It is so odd to see images of a city with no
advertisements.  The majority of us are so used to being constantly
bombarded with images, videos, and other various advertisements, it's almost
refreshing to see that places exist where there aren't billboards on every city
block.  Some may say that these images make the city appear dark and
bleak, and therefore, unwelcoming or unattractive.  However, how welcoming
is a place that is covered with flashing lights and thousands of
advertisements?

the handler's tell them where and what they can photo

to in any way describe north korea as a "utopia" is just beyond comprehension.

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