Total Graffiti Awareness
May 30, 2007 2:35 PM   Subscribe

Total Grafitti Awareness
posted by geos (53 comments total)
 
the totalitarian meme in society grows roots and shoots, when will we see the first blossom?
posted by geos at 2:36 PM on May 30, 2007


Police are being trained to watch for taggers on the street. "A kid with a skateboard and a big backpack is suspicious. If that backpack has graffiti on it, it is a good bet that there are spray cans inside."

First, they came for the Hot Topic kids.
posted by EatTheWeek at 3:01 PM on May 30, 2007 [1 favorite]


That anyone should decide to focus on this when there seem to be so many far more pressing issues seems laughable.

Then I remember that money is God to so many people.
posted by SaintCynr at 3:22 PM on May 30, 2007


Cracking down on graffiti is "totalitarianism"? Are you joking?
posted by brain_drain at 3:25 PM on May 30, 2007


I read Total Graffiti Awesomeness. Imagine my dismay at what the links actually led to.
posted by captaincrouton at 3:29 PM on May 30, 2007


Well, there's cool graffiti, but the vast majority of it is stupid shit like this. Maybe I'm just showing my age but I can see why some people are pissed.
posted by zek at 3:30 PM on May 30, 2007


I think all this data monitoring, background checks, TIIA, cameras everywhere in Brittan is basically the result of the lowered cost of doing these things. It never would have made sense to do this with an expensive mainframe, but as tracking becomes cheaper, why not do it? So you'll start to see a lot more.

So bend over.

Cracking down on graffiti is "totalitarianism"? Are you joking?

Well, it's totalitarianism in the sense of punishing people in the pursuit of aesthetics, as opposed to the mitigation of suffering or hardship. And obviously if you have a continuous gradient from "totalitarian" to "anarchy" any sort of crackdown moves the arrow from anarchy to totalitarianism.
posted by delmoi at 3:35 PM on May 30, 2007


...but the vast majority of it is stupid shit like this...

That train car was just so beautiful before the magnificent modernist design was so brutally vandalized!
posted by delmoi at 3:37 PM on May 30, 2007


I wonder how many times Tim Kephart's garage has gotten/will be tagged?
posted by ericb at 3:40 PM on May 30, 2007


The Graffiti Tracker "system" really seems to be nothing more than a database for labeling and geo-tagging a bunch of photos. The photos still have to be shot by hand, by someone going out on the street every day, and they still have to be identified by someone who can actually read the tags. That's a lot of fairly specialized work, and I'm sure they charge the authorities a pretty penny for it.

This system may seem to work for a little while, in the sense of providing the police with a few high-profile busts to crow about. But in the long run it will fail. Graffiti always adapts to whatever the authorities throw at it. Example: in the 70's in NYC, many up-and-coming writers learned to write using the names and styles of their elders-- a big part of the reason being so that it would be impossible to prove that such-and-such a person painted such-and-such a piece.

All this will do is weed out a few toys, while siphoning money away from city police budgets that could be better spent preventing actual violence.
posted by otherthings_ at 3:46 PM on May 30, 2007


It feels good
To say what i want
It feels good
To knock things down
It feels good
To see the disgust in their eyes
It feels good
And i'm gonna go wild
Spray paint the walls


- Black Flag, "Spray Paint"
posted by porn in the woods at 3:54 PM on May 30, 2007


Oh, and zek: one man's "stupid shit" is another man's calligraphy. :-)
posted by otherthings_ at 3:54 PM on May 30, 2007


There's a guy who lives next door to me who's a former graffiti artist-turned...um, guy who makes legal art for a living. I guess he's famous (but I can never remember his name - he's nice, though). Anyway, when his building gets tagged, the tags get painted over or scrubbed away within 48 hours.

I like "good" graffitti, even if it's illegal, but most of the stuff in my neighborhood is gang tags, and they're hideous.
posted by rtha at 4:00 PM on May 30, 2007


Well, it's totalitarianism in the sense of punishing people in the pursuit of aesthetics, as opposed to the mitigation of suffering or hardship.

Great. I'll come over and spray-paint my name on your car.

And obviously if you have a continuous gradient from "totalitarian" to "anarchy" any sort of crackdown moves the arrow from anarchy to totalitarianism.

By that logic, every law that prohibits some form of conduct is totalitarian.
posted by brain_drain at 4:03 PM on May 30, 2007 [1 favorite]


I wonder if anyone is developing sound scanners that pick up "dink-dink-dink... sssssssssssssssss."
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:04 PM on May 30, 2007


Or you could just shame them into giving up because they suck
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:11 PM on May 30, 2007


Graffiti vs. vandalism? Are they the same thing? Is there a fine line?

I find it really lame when people use glass etching material on store front windows, especially little mom 'n pop joints.
posted by snsranch at 4:15 PM on May 30, 2007 [1 favorite]


Well, it's totalitarianism in the sense of punishing people in the pursuit of aesthetics,

Aesthetics? Surely you jest. The vast majority is gang related bullshit and looks like nothing more than an ugly scrawl. If you think dilapidated buildings and expanses of concrete can't be made worse with it, I suggest you get out more and LOOK.
posted by IronLizard at 4:17 PM on May 30, 2007


Heh, this was awesomeness.
posted by Eekacat at 4:17 PM on May 30, 2007


I guess he's famous (but I can never remember his name -

Poor bastard .... wasn't getting folks to remember his name the whole point?
posted by RMD at 4:30 PM on May 30, 2007


graffiti is as old as walls... it's ubiquitous in all societies. it is annoying but essentially harmless (from the second link)

these people really don't like the teenagers with spraypaint, I wonder why:


Without the backup of a list of previous incidents most people arrested for graffiti face only a single count of vandalism and get off without any penalty. "A good case is only if there are many incidents," Tim Kephart said. Even then they usually get one year probation. "This is more serious than it sounds. They are ordered not to associate with other gang members or taggers. They are ordered to make restitution, which the city of Carson values at $400 per incident. They are subject to search and seizure at any time without a warrant while they are on probation. And they can face three years of incarceration if they violate the terms of their probation. They lose their driver's license for a year. And if the defendant can't make restitution he stays on probation until he is 21."


imagine that your city or town installed litter cams. the punishment for littering is often something like $300, say. Now, we all accidentally drop some garbage here and there. Suppose you happen to be the wrong color or the wrong person in the wrong place and you drop your cigarette butt on the ground. Suddenly out comes the database and look: Citizen A has littered 200 times! 200x$300 = $60,000. oops.

now of course, Citizen A is obviously a gang-member: just look at him!
posted by geos at 4:41 PM on May 30, 2007


Yeah...but I think I don't remember his name because "famous" in the graffiti/art world != "famous" to me.

Also - aesthetics? Yeah. That train wasn't improved by those tags...but maybe you think your door/stoop/house would look better with them. I like the graffiti that actually looks good - and there's lots of it in the Mission - but mostly it's ugly scrawls that tell Gang A to get out of Gang B's 'hood. And the taggers who mark up murals? Bad things should happen to them, the shitheads.
posted by rtha at 4:47 PM on May 30, 2007


Or they can be destroyed by The Splasher.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 5:08 PM on May 30, 2007


It was true when I was a kid, and it's far truer now - for many kids, graffiti is the most accessible way to learn how to make art. If they're lucky, they have one art for every 500 to 1000 students, and if they're truly, truly blessed, that art teacher will notice them and give them some guidance. For other kids, graffiti gives them a subculture wherein they learn about art from their peers.

Funding after-school art programs and public schools isn't as sexy as high-tech surveillance systems or as much fun as criminalizing teenage rebellion, but it would probably be just as effective.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 5:09 PM on May 30, 2007 [1 favorite]


Now, we all accidentally drop some garbage here and there.

Speak for yourself.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:24 PM on May 30, 2007


Graffiti is like music is like software is like any frontier where public space meets private space.

It lives in places that can be seen: maybe not "public space" but in the visual public sphere. There is no graffiti in your enclosed garden.

It lives: it has a beginning, a degradation and an end. It wants to live longer so your graffiti artist, rtha, knows the drill: he knows that if you erase them fast, they appear less and less often. The same tactic is used in commercial areas: erase them as fast as they come. It works. Not "forever": again and again and again. But it works.

And there is no clear aesthetic limit between rough tags and beautiful wall paintings: they are a continuum, an ecology. They are a fact of life of urban landscapes. They can be fought and they are. But they'll keep coming because the frontier keeps moving and the kids keep wanting to see and show themselves exist on every surface of the public sphere.
posted by bru at 5:49 PM on May 30, 2007 [2 favorites]


Funny, I've been shooting and categorizing graffiti purely as a hobby for awhile now. (self link) Never thought about the implications of using that data for law enforcement, although I can attest that keeping track of everything that goes up really makes you aware of an ongoing conversation that's taking place on the streets, hidden in plain sight.
posted by flod at 6:10 PM on May 30, 2007


I wonder if anyone is developing sound scanners that pick up "dink-dink-dink... sssssssssssssssss."

Actually...
posted by wfrgms at 6:37 PM on May 30, 2007


99.9999999% of people who see graffiti are repulsed by it.

What goes on in the tiny brains of these 'artists' when they are defacing property that is not theirs is something that has to do with the ego and only the ego.

You are really doing nothing else but facilitating public misery.

These people are destructive, deluded and most likely dangerous.
posted by wfc123 at 6:39 PM on May 30, 2007


> I wonder if anyone is developing sound scanners that pick up "dink-dink-dink... sssssssssssssssss."

Not sure if you were kidding, but the answer is yes.


> Well, there's cool graffiti, but the vast majority of it is stupid shit like this

I'm not trying to be snarky, but the "stupid shit" you linked looks better than the seasick vomit of color by our friend "cool."

If you want to say you are down with some graffiti, you can, like everyone else, use daim, geso, twist, or our perennial golden boy banksy as your example.

Me, I'd still rather see bad graffiti than good advertising. But that's just me.
posted by churl at 6:51 PM on May 30, 2007


I bow down to wfc123's amazing research skills! How did you manage to interview 1,000,000,000 people in such a short time? And-- who was the one person who wasn't repulsed by graffiti? I'd say it was me, but I don't remember filling out your questionnaire. ;-)
posted by otherthings_ at 6:52 PM on May 30, 2007


Aesthetics? Surely you jest. The vast majority is gang related bullshit and looks like nothing more than an ugly scrawl. If you think dilapidated buildings and expanses of concrete can't be made worse with it, I suggest you get out more and LOOK.

So what you're saying is, Anti-graffiti programs have nothing to do with aesthetics, because graffiti is aesthetically unappealing? Are you even thinking about what you're saying?
posted by delmoi at 6:52 PM on May 30, 2007


curse you wfrgms!
posted by churl at 6:53 PM on May 30, 2007


99.9999999% of people who see graffiti are repulsed by it.

What goes on in the tiny brains of these 'artists' when they are defacing property that is not theirs is something that has to do with the ego and only the ego.

You are really doing nothing else but facilitating public misery.

These people are destructive, deluded and most likely dangerous.
posted by wfc123 at 9:39 PM on May 30 [+]
[!]



What the fuck?!?!!?!? First of all, let's see a source for your figure of 99.9999999%, or were you just referring to yourself?

Second of all, O telepathic one, since you seem to know what is going on in the 'tiny' brains of the 'artists', why not share with the rest of us? What ego-related thoughts are going through their heads? Do these thoughts vary depending on the type of graffiti being created (publicity, territorial, roll call, threatening, or sympathetic)?

Thirdly, I'll grant you the destructive, but on what basis do you claim that 'these people' (Every single one of them, Mr Generalization?) are deluded or dangerous. Dangerous, for using spray paint? Deluded!?!?!?!? Oh, he's a tagger, he must be hallucinating!


Come on now, this is the fucking blue. You are more than welcome to share your viewpoints, but you have to do better than gross generalizations, bullshit statistics, and ad hominem attacks around here.
posted by krash2fast at 7:08 PM on May 30, 2007 [1 favorite]


wfc123, just because you and your friends at the country club don't like graffiti, does not mean that only the tiniest percentage of people in the world enjoy it. Don't state your opinions as if they were well researched facts.
posted by KingoftheWhales at 7:18 PM on May 30, 2007


Well, I'm from another planet, so obviously I don't get the whole "graffiti" thing.

I mean, seriously, people spraypaint shit all over other peoples stuff?

Thats fucked up right there.
posted by Avenger at 8:23 PM on May 30, 2007


wfc123, just because you and your friends at the country club don't like graffiti, does not mean that only the tiniest percentage of people in the world enjoy it. Don't state your opinions as if they were well researched facts.
posted by KingoftheWhales at 10:18 PM on May 30 [+]


How do you know wfc123 has friends at the country club? Is that a well-researched fact?
posted by brain_drain at 8:27 PM on May 30, 2007


Graffiti is to art what the Internet is to reasoned debate.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:33 PM on May 30, 2007


When I was installing my graffiti in downtown NYC I got nothing but compliments. I would say 99.99999% of the people who saw it had their lives enriched by it.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:00 AM on May 31, 2007


Cracking down on graffiti is "totalitarianism"? Are you joking?

Well, it's totalitarianism in the sense of punishing people in the pursuit of aesthetics


No, it's punishing people in pursuit of breaking the law. Oh, but my bad, their lawbreaking was prettier than others. WTF??

It's a move toward totalitarianism, if you want to call it that, because of the means (cameras everywhere) not the end (stopping illegal behaviour). Don't think it should be illegal? Have that changed. Or go break the law in front of an officer and draw attention to the cause.

Aesthetics? Dis/approval from the public? I highly recommend you trying those in court. But please tell me when your appearance is because I'd like to be there.
posted by dreamsign at 2:36 AM on May 31, 2007


I think someone spray-painted wfc123's dog and he's harbouring some bitterness about the whole affair.

I love graffiti and tagging. Never did it myself, but I think it's great. And I understand it. Someone called it egotistical. Of course it is. A shout of 'I was here' into the void is about as egotistical as it gets, but I understand the need to do so.

I would rather see someone's name scrawled on a wall in byro than an entire fucking building advertising McDonald's or Coca Cola. There's something innately human about the desire to create graffiti. I'm not sure about the aesthetics of it all, but the desire to be noticed and remembered is an impulse that is impossible to subdue. Criminalise it all you like, but it won't go away.

The only time I am against graffiti is when it's used on ambulances or other official vehicles that have to be taken out of commission to be cleaned up.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:33 AM on May 31, 2007


Impossible to subdue? Amazingly, when I visit beautiful natural surroundings -- waterfalls, beaches, lakes -- I manage not to spray paint the rocks with my egotism. Others, however, perhaps have less impulse control. Or they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.

I like creativity. There are many, many ways to be creative that don't involve messing shit up for other people. Even if you, slimepuppy, would enjoy it if someone came and tagged your lane-side garden shed, or fence, or car or what-have-you (since none of those fall into your exceptions), surely you recognize that others needn't feel that way. That in fact, your reaction would probably be in the minority. So... so what? It's an impulse so it's a-ok?
posted by dreamsign at 5:00 AM on May 31, 2007


I meant the impulse is impossible to subdue externally, not on a personal level. As is well demonstrated by all the laws and regulations that have done very little to quell graffiti and tagging. By all means, enforce mandatory prison sentences on all offenders, but it is still going to happen.

I'm expressing an opinion on the matter. Which obviously differs from yours, dreamsign and places me in the minority. I'm not trying to convert you. I'm not offering solutions or even saying that all graffiti everywhere should be legalised. I'm just saying I understand where the people doing it are coming from. You will also note that I didn't say anything about your right to be upset about the whole thing. I fully recognise the fact that some people do not like it, but hey, you have the law on your side on the matter. Enjoy it.

'Messing shit up for other people' is loose concept. I have no say in what goes up in my neighbourhood. If a company pays the government or the right people enough money, they can erect any fucking eyesore monstrosity they want. I will never be consulted and my tax money will definitely not go to cleaning it up. Aesthetic aside, graffiti feels more personal to me. They tell stories. But I'm probably looking at the whole thing a bit too deeply for some people. For most people all they see with graffiti is the surface level. A picture is always a picture and there is nothing beyond it. And luckily for them, the government agrees.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:06 AM on May 31, 2007


Not looking to argue it out, really, just understand where you're coming from. Aside from your ambulance/public services vehicles, it seems like you feel that public property as a whole is a legitimate target, despite the fact that others might not like it because, well, people may not like what's being done with public space anyway.

But if that's where you draw the line, I'm still not clear. That chain restaurant being opened up on the corner of your neighbourhood probably has your name on it. What about the garage belonging to the old man living down the lane? Or his car?

You're kinda taking the easy road with the "fucking monstrosity" put up by some faceless company, but there's a lot of privately owned stuff that gets defaced, too, and while there's a legitimate argument to be made for no objective standard of the beauty of these changes, surely some deference should be paid to the owner who toiled real hours in a workplace to pay for, and probably will again to fix. Does the law pay for that? No. The law isn't a fix.
posted by dreamsign at 9:03 AM on May 31, 2007


Police are being trained to watch for taggers on the street. "A kid with a skateboard and a big backpack is suspicious. If that backpack has graffiti on it, it is a good bet that there are spray cans inside."

It's beginning...HOBBY PROFILING. Soon those who crochet will also be singled out, as they could make nifty masks for armed robberies.
posted by bidrattler at 2:09 PM on May 31, 2007


99.9999999%

There are six billion people in the world, right? So me and 5 other people, including the artists themselves, are allowed to not be "repulsed" by it. Thanks for clearing that up.
posted by puddleglum at 2:09 PM on May 31, 2007


Banksy (from his book, Wall and Piece):

People abuse you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They're on tv making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are the advertisers and they are laughing at you. However, you are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with impunity. Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't we them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.
posted by puddleglum at 2:14 PM on May 31, 2007 [1 favorite]


That's cool, flod — a while ago I had a similar idea, but I never got around to actually doing it. I wanted to be able to extract time information, like "when did this sign appear? when and where did other similar signs appear?"
posted by hattifattener at 2:31 PM on May 31, 2007


This is a good conversation going here. Weird but good.

When I was growing up, I did put up a type of graffiti because it was communicating a message. That message was "Shit is fucked up." And "Look at me." And "Can you see this?" And "I am nothing and I am everywhere."

Now that I am grown up, I subscribe to the Broken Window theory, that graffiti left unchecked in fact causes the problems it rails against. The problem is not graffiti, but only at first.

Taking down graffiti fits in nicely with my growth as an artist. For instance, my island of Key West is an official GIANT-free zone. And I find the circle of it all as being the nature of my own zen. Being that that was a movement I helped co-create, every OBEY sticker I take down is like the ebb and flow of "the Tao" itself.

Taking it down is as much fan as putting it up when your minds in the right place. Plus, I get to work in the daylight!

Once I covered LA in OBEY advertising in the night. And then once I took down every piece of OBEY off Seattle in the day.

As an artist, the both are important for me. But as an adult, I am more interested in building beautiful things now. Today that means cleaning up my ugly things. And it is fun!

Lastly, what does an honest graffiti artist have to worry about his or her work being buffed? In the words of Lao Tzu, "A master finishes good work, turns away, and walks on."
posted by humannaire at 10:14 PM on May 31, 2007


Exactly. To legalize graffiti would be to kill it. To artificially preserve pieces, to hallow them, robs them of the very thing that made them exciting in the first place. Even taking pictures is cheating a bit. But of course it's hard to let go.

Have to call rubbish on your broken window theory, though. Graffiti exists as part of a larger whole; no need to scapegoat.
posted by flod at 12:14 AM on June 1, 2007


Banksy has another quote (in "Wall and Piece", I think) that perfectly counters the Broken Window theory: it's a letter he got from a resident of Bristol, complaining that after Banksy and his pals started putting up graffiti and street art in the neighborhood, yuppies started thinking it was a "cool" and "edgy" place to live, which led to gentrification and a rise in property taxes, to the extent that this guy and his family were forced to leave the house they'd lived in for generations.
posted by otherthings_ at 11:33 AM on June 1, 2007


Have to call rubbish on your broken window theory, though. Graffiti exists as part of a larger whole; no need to scapegoat.

Not at all. What I am suggesting rather is that graffiti as it were has served it's purpose.

Scapegoating is where blame is placed. But what graffiti has done is let us know there was a problem. Learning about the problem is what has allowed us to work on solving it. In the same way that we are powerable enough to make movements which cause problems, we are as effectively able to use the same ability to choose to undo any problem we have engendered.

So I say, removing graffiti was the first step of a new artistic movement. Graffiti has become so ordinary that it is no longer even noticed. Even the best of the artists have been relegated to obscurity to the point that anyone can do it and make a name for themselves but not make a difference.

Cleaning off graffiti is provocative. And the Broken Window theory is not mine. It has roots that are based in large scale observation. What more, it is something of a truism even, so common sensical in canon is it now. Real estate agents speak on it without actually grasping it.

Furthermore, there is actually a good deal of authoritative work that already exists to support the implementation of removal of graffiti as a way to foster a new freedom of movement.

The ideas are so counter-intuitive but accurate in truth that I have been moved to turn against the tide of my own peers and go my own way. Which is what most artists who started to do graffiti - DOZE, DONDI, REVS, Keith Haring - did in the first place. There are many ways to describe the sensation, "part of the problem or part of the solution," etc. But what makes it good is that it is so fun!

In all honesty, graffiti is uninspired. Banksy is proof of that. It is popular but so what? Why I started art was because I was inspired. Popularity is a sure sign of relevance, and relevance may be necessary but it is also mundane.

I want others who are beginning to do art to be inspired, and the only way for this to happen is...to be interesting!
posted by humannaire at 7:02 PM on June 1, 2007


Something for the lovers and haters: A Graffiti Report Card
posted by slimepuppy at 9:41 AM on June 3, 2007


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