Showing papers on "Graffiti published in 2009"

War is over (if you want it): rethinking the graffiti problem

Abstract: (2009). War is over (if you want it): rethinking the graffiti problem. Australian Planner: Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 24-34.

I write, therefore I am: texts in the city

Abstract: Fuhrer noted that graffiti are announcements of one’s identity, a kind of testimonial to one’s existence in a work of anonymity: ‘I write, therefore I am.’ However, graffiti is often understood to be at best an art form, at worst vandalism. This article is about graffiti, where ‘savage’ writing is inscribed onto the walls of our cities (Lefebvre) and argues that graffiti represents forms of text that directly challenge presumptions of private ownership and corporate power, that draw our attention to the materiality and spatiality of the city, and that act to create what Giddens, Beck et al. and Beck have called narratives of the self. The article suggests that graffiti has much to tell us about the ways in which broader global contexts impact on how we use textual practices to construct narratives about ourselves and our communities in everyday local sites.

System and method for allocating digital graffiti objects and canvasses

Abstract: The subject specification provides a system, method, and computer readable storage medium directed towards allocating digital canvasses for digital graffiti. The specification discloses receiving data corresponding to digital graffiti formed from a gesture undergone by a device. The specification also discloses identifying a digital canvas corresponding to the digital graffiti as a function of the received data.

Revolution is the New Black: Graffiti/Art and Mark-making Practices

Abstract: In recent years there has been a strong resurgence in the production and visibility of graffiti/art in Australian cities. This paper considers what we may learn about this practice by adopting an archaeological approach to its study. The results yield interesting insights into two contemporary phenomena of graffiti/art production that offer intriguing links to Australian rock art. The study considers the significance of contemporary mark-making and explores how this practice may inform our approach to rock art research.

Stencil graffiti in urban waterscapes of Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina

Abstract: Stencil graffiti is an illegal, multi-vocal, visual urban discourse that alters the texture of street experience through inventive juxtaposition of mass-mediated and local imagery. Like street arti...

Graffiti-ID: matching and retrieval of graffiti images

Abstract: Graffiti are abundant in most urban neighborhoods and are considered a nuisance and an eyesore. Yet, law enforcement agencies have found them to be useful for understanding gang activities, and uncovering the extent of a gang's territory in large metropolitan areas. The current method for matching and retrieving graffiti is based on a manual database search that is not only inaccurate but also time consuming. We present a content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system for automatic matching and retrieval of graffiti images. Our system represents each graffiti image by a bag of SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) features. The similarity between a query image and a graffiti image in the database is computed based on the number of matched SIFT features between the two images under certain geometric constraints. Experimental results on two graffiti databases with thousands of graffiti images show encouraging results.

Banksy's Graffiti: A Not-So-Simple Case of Criminal Damage?:

Abstract: Graffiti artists are, if caught, most likely to be prosecuted under s. 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. This article explores the extent to which the substantive definition of criminal damage applies to them. There is no separate exculpatory or justificatory defence of ‘aesthetic value’, and so graffiti artists must argue that they either have not ‘damaged’ property, they lacked mens rea or they had lawful excuse. It is argued that the work of artists such as Banksy forces a reappraisal of the precision and applicability of criminal damage.

Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York's Urban Underground

Abstract: Reviewed Medium: book Authors: Gregory J. Snyder Year: 2009 Pages: 256 Publisher: New York University Press ISBN: 9780814740453 (soft cover). Prices: $24.95 USD(soft cover).

Psychopathology of Excitatory and Compulsive Aspects of Vandalistic Graffiti

Abstract: In this paper were explored psychological themes underlying vandalistic graffiti by 162 Italian adolescents (154 boys, 8 girls; M age = 17.5 yr., SD = 2.3) who "felt hooked" on vandalistic graffiti and agreed to participate in an interview with a graffiti writer. Use of this interview could clarify the motivations which led these youths to write on walls, the meaning they give to that act, the emotions they feel as they write, and their perception of risks and excitement involved. Qualitative analysis of their responses suggested these adolescents present a marked excitatory-compulsive trait, report a sense of emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and a lack of internal points of reference, and adopt behaviors linked to a pressing need for immediate gratification.

Street Art & Graffiti Art: Developing an Understanding

Abstract: While graffiti is revered as an art form to some, it is often seen as an unwanted nuisance by others. While vibrantly rich in history, graffiti has a controversial past, present, and future that will likely continue to be the subject of debate, especially with the insurgence of street art, an art form that often overlaps graffiti art in subject matter, media, aesthetic appearance, and placement as a public form of art. Distinguishing between street art and graffiti art proves quite challenging to the undiscerning eye, yet through a series of interviews and thorough investigation, I questioned the contexts of street art and graffiti art. By introducing non-traditional forms of art that are engaging to adolescent students, street art and graffiti art can expand the secondary art curriculum by helping students become more cognizant of current social, visual and cultural aesthetics in their own visual world. INDEX WORDS: Art Education, Graffiti Art, Street Art STREET ART & GRAFFITI ART: DEVELOPING AN UNDERSTANDING

A Study of Graffiti in Teacher Education

Abstract: Problem statement: Graffiti is about self-expression. When youth cannot find people to listen to them, they may express their strongly felt, internal experiences and emotions safely by writing on public property. Thus, graffiti can be handled as a counseling issue. When this self-expression of a thought, wish, or attitude comes from prospective teachers, the difficult work of sorting these issues out may help us develop better teacher-education programs and produce better teachers. Thus, this work takes the issue of graffiti by prospective teachers as an interdisciplinary issue, bridging counseling and teacher training. Purpose of the Study: This research aims at extending the understanding of the contents of and underlying reasons for graffiti written by prospective teachers. Method: This study is based on the content analysis method and supplemented with structured interviews. A total of 178 inscriptions were analyzed. In addition, six graduating students were interviewed. Findings and Results: One of the major implications of this qualitative research was the presence of some methodological problems inherent in the graffitirelated studies. Second, it was found that bathroom graffiti might point to the importance for student teachers to express themselves in terms of sexual, political, and religious issues and to socialize through proper communication with others. Finally, the results of the analysis indicated that there were two main spheres of graffiti production: labs/classes and restrooms. The first group included rather socially acceptable topics, which focused on the need for belongingness, homesickness, romance, and humor or the form of someone’s name and signs (doodling). The second group included more anonymous inscriptions, mainly about sex and politics/religion. In this category, men were found to write more than women did. Conclusions and Recommendations: The findings suggested that the anonymous nature of bathroom graffiti particularly makes it difficult to be inquired about through interviews. Prospective teachers’ need to express themselves and socialize can be further met through curricular and/or extracurricular activities

When the Street Becomes a Pedagogue

Abstract: I've long been interested in the way that public space comes to be used to present the ideas of private concerns. I've never quite understood why a fast food chain can blatantly display their ideas in the streetscape, yet graffiti and street art is considered the work of criminals. I've found much of my professional activity, including PhD research, devoted to the exploration of how signage is deployed and appropriated and want to draw on a couple of these research projects to explain how I see the public pedagogical intent of urban signage functioning in the street-scape.

Hiding in the light: graffiti and the visual

Abstract: Some 20 years ago, Dick Hebdige (1988) proposed that in contemporary society, a youth subculture typically ‘forms up in the space between surveillance and the evasion of surveillance, it translates...

Title: A review of the literature on social, non-technical deterrents for vandalism in the rail industry

Abstract: This report reviews the international and Australian literature on vandalism and graffiti, with a focus on social, non-technical deterrents. Throughout this report, we emphasise the need for multidisciplinary and collaborative interventions to counter this multifaceted, little-understood problem. Based on a review of international and Australian best practice in reducing vandalism and graffiti, we propose 10 short-term strategies and an overall longer-term research direction. The aim of these proposals is to identify innovative and successful approaches to minimise and prevent vandalism and graffiti in the Australian rail industry.

The hip-hopsploitation film cycle: representing, articulating, and appropriating hip-hop culture

Abstract: In this dissertation, I examine the articulation of hip-hop in the mid-1980s as it emerged onto the national stage of American popular culture. Using Articulation Theory, I weave together an argument explaining how and why hip-hop went from being articulated as a set of multicultural and inclusive practices, organized around breaking, graffiti, and DJing, to being articulated to a violent, misogynistic, and homophobic hypermasculine representation of blackness as essentially rap music culture. In doing so I also argue that there are real political, social, racial, cultural, and ideological implications to this shift in articulation; that something is at stake in defining hip-hop as both black and rap music culture. I put forward this argument by making three distinct steps over the course of this dissertation. First, I identify a change in how hip-hop was represented and thus articulated in popular media. Through an intertextual analysis of the hip-hopsploitation genre films I show that early hip-hop was being represented primarily as a set of cultural practices cohering around breaking, graffiti, and DJing rather than the now dominant articulation as rap music culture. Next I set forth one possible reason for this shift within the limiting conditions set by the available media technologies and means of commodification. The visual nature of hip-hop’s early articulation coupled with the economic inaccessibility of consumer home video made breaking and graffiti difficult to commodify compared to rapping as an aural element. Using “technological determinist” theorists like McLuhan, Innis, and Kittler, I argue that understanding how hip-hop as been historically constructed requires analyzing the limiting effect that the material conditions of media technologies have on the production of hip-hop.

Interpretation of handwritten single-stroke graffiti using support vector machines

Abstract: This paper presents the graffiti interpretation of one-stroke handwritten digits (0 to 9) and commands (backspace, carriage return and space) using support vector machines (SVMs). A number of SVM-based graffiti interpreters are proposed for the recognition of graffiti. The performance of the proposed SVM-based graffiti interpreters subject to various kernel functions and parameters are investigated. Simulation and experimental results are presented to show the applicability and the merits of various graffiti interpreters.

Contested Terrains: Visualizing Glocalization in Global Cities

Abstract: This essay employs a visual approach to explore some of the ways that spatial practices become markers of a globalising and glocalizing world. Images are offered that reflect some of the symbolic competition created by more and less recent migrants as they lay claim to ‘contested terrains’ by changing what they look like. Although often dismissed as mere “marking” of territory, such ordinary practices by migrants of symbolic home or community building are crucial to understanding global cities. One indicator of their importance is the, often hostile reactions by the dominant society to them. A brief review of some of the most important theoretical perspectives on these interrelated phenomena, such as those of Saskia Sassen, David Harvey, and Manuel Castells, isolates common expectations about the visibility of resulting competing spatial practices in shared multiethnic residential and commercial environments. It is argued that many of the contradictions created by the concentration of global capital can be seen in the neighborhood streetscapes of global cities. From Georg Simmel, through Henri Lefebvre, and Lyn H. Lofland, the visible, and the symbolic, have been central to urban analysis. Therefore, the ubiquitous aspects of what Jackson called ‘vernacular landscapes,’ such as commercial signs and graffiti in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, London, New York, and Rome are addressed.

Aesthetics, Authority and the Outlaw of the Street

Abstract: This is a paper about the meanings of aesthetics, authority, street art, and graffiti. It is about the potential that graffiti has to disrupt the codes that emanate from the post-industrial, capitalist city, and the ways in which law making authorities have attempted to curb that potential. The regulation of public space involves control over the visual appearance of that space. The Graffiti Prevention Act (Vic) 2007 is one instrument employed in regulating the aesthetics of space. The legislation defines street art as illegal and imposes harsh penalties for the creators of this form of public art. As Margaret Davies writes in Asking the Law Question, the illegality of an act cannot be seen at face value – it is only after we see the act through the filter of the law that it is seen as criminal. I use this as a starting point in asking why graffiti is a criminal act.

Restroom Politics: Voices in the Stalls

Abstract: Theories of Public Spaces and Graffiti An Analysis of Restroom Texts Responses to Latrinalia Conclusion References Although mention of graffiti often conjures images of dirty subways or crumbling segments of the Berlin Wall, many people deal with graffiti in a seemingly much more private place every day‐that found in the nearest restroom stall. This paper attempts to explore how many of the same techniques used to govern, and often eliminate, graffiti in public spaces have made their way into the privacy of restroom stalls. By labeling graffiti as dirty and subversive, society has found a way to eliminate the graffiti even before it has to be scrubbed off of the stall walls. This paper continues on to examine the consequences of these governing techniques and their implications for our liberal society. Although mention of graffiti often conjures up images of subways plastered in tags or pictures of the Berlin wall, many people deal with graffiti in a seemingly much more private Restroom Politics http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol4n2/politics.xml 1 of 10 5/6/2010 11:48 AM space every day—graffiti found in the nearest restroom stall. Alan Dundes (1966) coined the term latrinalia to refer to this particular type of graffiti, and many social scientists, photographers, and lovers of pop culture have studied this phenomenon since Dundes's early work (Ferem 2006; Ferem 2007; Stoakes and Dolber 2006). These authors often view latrinalia as superior to other forms of graffiti because it can be done in privacy, with far less fear of recrimination; for this reason Ferem (2006) declares the restroom “the last great medium for pure self‐expression” and a “sanctuary or bomb shelter” for the individual. This expression takes many forms, from the profane to the nonsensical to the political and philosophical. However, this raises a question as to the type of space the restroom actually is—if a trip to the toilet stall immerses one into a conversation about politics and sexuality, just how private is that trip? This paper attempts to delve into some of the spatial issues surrounding latrinalia in an effort to better understand the implications of these practices. I begin by exploring some basic theoretical models of what public space is and then turn to studies of graffiti. I then attempt to fit a study of latrinalia at Miami University into this theoretical framework in order to understand what effects this type of graffiti has on the public. To understand what type of space latrinalia inhabits I will first develop a theoretical understanding of public and private spaces. Because the term “public space” is such an amorphous and complicated concept, an appropriately nuanced theoretical understanding is necessary for understanding these spaces. Kohn (2004: 11) offers such a theory in her interpretation of public space as a “cluster concept.” Kohn (2004) includes three different factors in her definition of public space: accessibility, ownership, and intersubjectivity. Each of these factors works on a sliding scale—one side of the scale represents absolute privateness while the other represents absolute publicness, and a space itself can fall anywhere between these poles for each factor. By accessibility Kohn is referring to the ability for anyone to travel into the space (here it is important to look not only at direct access to the space, but also to travel between private spaces and the public space in question). Thus, a space that more people can access is more public than a space that very few people can access. The ownership component is fairly straightforward—it asks whether a private person, a corporation, or the government owns the space. Kohn argues that the spaces owned by the government are the most public, and those owned by private people are the most private. Finally, intersubjectivity refers to how people are positioned inside of the space. A public space is one in which people are positioned intersubjectively (toward each other), while a private spaces does not position people toward each other. This factor is perhaps the most important because a space can only be public if people are in it interacting with each Restroom Politics http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol4n2/politics.xml 2 of 10 5/6/2010 11:48 AM other, no matter how accessible that space is. However, it is also the hardest factor to assess because it incorporates the blurry realm between space and action—people can act intersubjectively in a space designed to keep people apart, and vice‐versa. In order to analyze where a space falls on each continuum, numerous different aspects of accessibility and intersubjectivity must be examined, from economic to social to legal, even to psychological. For example, Low (2005) demonstrates how poverty can be a restriction against the accessibility of spaces for the poor in her discussion of gated communities. Fraser (1990) argues that gender can be a factor inhibiting intersubjectivity, even within publicly accessible spaces. If one wants to fully understand public space one must look at all of the different factors that go into a space's production. Where does the toilet stall, our place of inquiry, fit into this model? In this study I examined the men's restrooms of five different buildings on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Of the five buildings two are buildings meant for general public use (King Library and the Shriver Student Center), two house departments (Shideler Hall, home of the geography and geology departments, and Laws Hall, the business school), and one building holds both a department and an auditorium open to the public (Hall Auditorium). These five buildings represented sixteen different restrooms. These buildings were chosen because a wide range of Miami's population passes through them and they are all similar in terms of accessibility, ownership, and intersubjectivity. As a public university Miami University falls somewhere between government and private institution on the ownership scale. Thus, within the model the restrooms are semi‐public in ownership. All of the buildings that I studied are fairly accessible to anyone during regular working hours of the week. Although two of the buildings house departments, and are thus utilized by a more specific population than the others, anyone could easily enter the buildings and use the restrooms. Despite this, accessibility is limited by the location of Miami University. Because Miami University is located in the middle of farming country in southwest Ohio, few people tend to pass through the university unless they already live there, are affiliated with the university in some way, or are considering becoming affiliated with the school. This means that the population that uses restrooms at Miami is strictly Miami's own population. The accessibility of the toilet stalls themselves is more interesting; although anyone can use the stall, they can only use them when they are not occupied. This accessibility issue affects the intersubjectivity of the stall; the stall is not intersubjective. Only one person is allowed inside of the stall at a time, and many laws enforce the privacy one should have inside of the toilet stall. Even beyond these laws, the men's restroom is governed by an intricate set of informal codes that prohibit interaction: men tend to hold few Restroom Politics http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol4n2/politics.xml 3 of 10 5/6/2010 11:48 AM conversations in the restroom, try not to use urinals next to each other, and usually keep their eyes averted from one another while in the restroom (Young pers. observed). Overall the severe lack of intersubjectivity seems to make the toilet stall a very private place. However, precisely because intersubjectivity is such a blurry term, it must be examined further. Intersubjectivity is a term that refers to the people in public spaces, so we now turn to theories about these people. Generally, theorists tend to focus upon two main definitions of the public—one offered by Habermas (1991) and the other by Fraser (1990). Habermas argues that the public sphere is a realm that can be accessed by all citizens and in which public opinion can be formed. Although Fraser uses Habermas's conception of the public sphere as a starting point, she argues that many publics exist within society. The people using the restrooms in Oxford are from a particular demographic, and I am only studying males out of this population. Habermas focuses on the possibility of deliberation and public opinion in the public sphere, while Fraser focuses upon expressions of identity. Thus, to see if restroom stalls truly are not intersubjective, and thus to see if they are spaces not conducive to the (a) public, we must prove that neither communication of identity (where communication refers to a conversation between two or more identities) not deliberation occur within toilet stalls. This will be the focus of the next section of this paper. While examining the possibility that graffiti is intersubjective, we should keep some of the theories offered by Staeheli (1996) in mind. She argues that public actions do not necessarily take place within public spaces, and that private actions do not always occur in the private. In fact, when people perform actions within the spaces that they aren't normally performed, these actions can be transformative. Cresswell (1996) takes this logic to examinations of graffiti and argues that graffiti is powerful precisely because it seems to be out of place. However, hegemonic discourses (such as laws, political speeches, etc.) attempt to put graffiti back into place, and thus attempt to strip the graffiti of its power. Thus, in order to truly examine the transgressive power of graffiti we must allow for the possibility of action being divorced from the spaces in which it should be happening. This means that it is possible that graffiti artists are participating in an intersubjective discourse e

Hip-hop e graffiti: uma abordagem comparativa entre o Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo

Abstract: This paper proposes a comparative analysis of the struggles for recognition through the hip-hop and graffiti cultures in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. It focuses on the tensions created by the search for social inclusion, the criticism toward segregationist social relationships and the appeal of market-driven visibility. It also analyzes how subcultures construct an order of recognition and how they are appropriated and interpreted in the public sphere.