Showing papers on "Graffiti published in 2015"

Keeping it real? Subcultural graffiti, street art, heritage and authenticity

Abstract: This article considers the implications of framing subcultural graffiti and street art as heritage. Attention is paid to subcultural graffiti’s relationship to street art and the incompatibility of its traditions of illegality, illegibility, anti-commercialism and transience with the formalised structures of heritage frameworks. It is argued that the continued integration of street art and subcultural graffiti into formal heritage frameworks will undermine their authenticity and mean that traditional definitions of heritage, vandalism and the historic environment will all need to be revisited. The article contributes to the current re-theorisation of heritage’s relationship with erasure by proposing that subcultural graffiti should be perceived as an example of ‘alternative heritage’ whose authenticity might only be assured by avoiding the application of official heritage frameworks and tolerating loss in the historic environment.

Imaging Egypt’s political transition in (post-)revolutionary street art: on the interrelations between social media and graffiti as media of communication

Abstract: This article offers a conceptualization of the interrelations between street art and social media in (post-)revolutionary Cairo by focusing on the reasons as to why certain politically engaged young people in Egypt select graffiti as their medium for political expression in a time in which many other media of communication, most notably social media, are available. It contends that the particular appeal of street art for the graffiti artist lies in its ability to function simultaneously as a medium of communication and a contentious performance, combined with the particular power of the aesthetic to change conceptions of social reality of the audience through what Ranciere has called the ‘(re)distribution of the sensible’. Graffiti and street art thus present artists with singular possibilities to express their political ideas and appeal to the public because street art combines the power of framing, the power of performance and the power of imagination.

‘Welcome to the civilization of fear’: on political graffiti heterotopias in Greece in times of crisis

Abstract: Drawing upon ethnographical research carried out in Greek cities, this article discusses the use of political graffiti as a creative, playful response to the economic depression, social upheavals and precariousness surrounding the writers and as an act of civil disobedience and political protest in the context of the Greek economic crisis. The graffiti creation releases a flood of cultural responses to the crisis and gives an insight into the lived experience endured by the Greek people faced with the gloomy conditions of a society in crisis. The analysis traces the ways in which activists and unaligned writers turn their attention to the creative and expressive potential of graffiti and articulate cultural heterotopias on the visual landscape of Greek cities. Spatial politics allow distinctive political voices to transform the material dimensions of urban life in meaningful visual expression. The act of doing graffiti in the dystopia of crisis shows the desire of grassroots artists and cultural activists...

The Pen or the Sword: A Situated Spatial Analysis of Graffiti and Violent Injury in Vancouver, British Columbia

Abstract: Graffiti is a ubiquitous feature of the urban landscape commonly perceived to be a symptom of disorder, deprivation, and violence. Broken windows theory asserts that it is also a cause. To examine this, we conduct a geographic correlation study of graffiti and violence using geographic information systems. A strong spatial covariation is observed, with spatially dependent residual clusters suggesting that the graffiti–violence relationship is context dependent and varied. Ferrell and Weide's spot theory provides a lens for situating hot spots and facilitating a more nuanced interrogation of graffiti and violence in several Vancouver neighborhoods. We advocate for situated spatial analyses of interpersonal violence to inform public health interventions and advance policymaking beyond the popular aesthetic symbolism of urban space.

Innovative Imaging Techniques for Examination and Documentation of Mural Paintings and Historical Graffiti in the Catacombs of San Giovanni, Syracuse

Abstract: This paper presents scientific and technical examination of two mural paintings and their historical graffiti located in the catacombs of San Giovanni in Syracuse, Sicily. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), Infrared Photography, 3D Photomodeling are presented as innovative imaging techniques used to capture significant details of the palimpsest, along with XRF non-invasive point analysis. These methods were performed on the Philadelpheia palimpsest and on the arcosolium of the Madonna. RTI technique was tested as a valid tool to enhance the readability and documentation of the numerous historical graffiti covering some of the murals, which are of high interest to scholars since they are useful to reconstruct the cultural history of the site. The results of the infrared RTI were particularly powerful in their ability to document graffiti on deteriorated surfaces painted with earth pigments. 3D Photomodeling also proved to be a successful and handy tool to document the position of paintings and graffiti in context with one another. The examination of the two paintings was integrated with an analytical study of the palette realized with non-invasive XRF.

Constructing citizenship at the margins: the case of young graffiti writers in Melbourne

Abstract: Young people engaging in graffiti are often portrayed as the anti-thesis of the ‘good citizen’. As politicians and the media fight the ‘war on graffiti’, these young people are tagged as criminals and misfits, overlooking the ways this arts practice reclaims their ability to tell stories and unhinge traditional ways of practicing citizenship. Using ideas from Michelle Fine et al.’s social psychology of spatiality as a conceptual lens, this paper explores the tensions, contradictions and binaries these young people find themselves caught between, particularly; art or vandalism, professional or amateur, artist or criminal, and legitimate or illegitimate citizens as young people and transgressors of ‘normal behaviour’ in public spaces. Using multiple methods, including ‘hanging out’ and participatory visual methods, this study explores how young graffiti artists’ experiences in and out of a legal ‘street art’ programme, speak back to ‘normative’ conceptualisations of citizenship. Their experiences of differe...

Back to the Fifties: Nostalgia, Hollywood Film, and Popular Music of the Seventies and Eighties

Abstract: Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter One - Fixing the Fifties: Reaganism, Nostalgia, and Back to the Future Chapter Two: Re-Reading American Graffiti Chapter Three: "Old Time Rock and Roll" on Re-Generation Soundtracks Chapter Four: Michael Jackson, MTV, and Crossover Nostalgia Chapter Five: Star Legacies: James Dean and Sandra Dee in the Re-Generation Epilogue: The Futures of Nostalgia Works Cited Index

Sex and Secrecies: An Exploration of Students’ Conceptualizations of Heteronormativity

Abstract: Graffiti on the female students’ lavatory doors of a higher education institution in Malta, most often describing sexual and romantic desires, demonstrates how students create alternative spaces beyond formal learning environments to acquire knowledge about sex and sexual orientation. This article presents a study of the writings that document the student perceptions about lesbianism. A heteronormative way of thinking emerged as the dominant characteristic in the exploration of graffiti text, which questioned lesbian identities. This article also explores some of the girls’ articulations, which describe their physical attractions toward gay boys/men. The study suggests these writings have created a forum that serves as a platform to actively reproduce, contest, and disrupt heteronormative familiarity and also to facilitate attempts by the lesbian graffiti girls to organize themselves outside the graffiti community.

THE G-WORD: Virtuosity and Violation, Negotiating and Transforming Graffiti

Abstract: Contemporary public discussions on graffiti are characterized by co-existence of contradictory claims. On the one hand graffiti is described as vandalism, and on the other as an artistic movement. ...

This Wall Speaks: Graffiti and Transnational Networks in Palestine

Abstract: Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population - an iron wall which the native population cannot break through This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy--Vladomir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall (1923)In 2002, the Israeli government began construction of an eight-meter-high concrete barrier which would come to surround and cut through much of the West Bank of Palestine Though concrete was selected in favor of iron, nearly eighty years after writing, Vladimir Jabotinsky's crude blueprint for the colonization of Palestine was realized Jabotinsky's ideas formed the basis of Revisionist Zionism, a brand of European Jewish nationalism that was most uncompromising in its views of how to treat with indigenous Palestinians, as well as how to confront the British, who controlled Palestine at the time of Jabotinsky's writing1 Jabotinsky and his followers believed that nothing short of literal separation between the colonists and indigenous Palestinians would be safe for Zionist colonists, and though Israeli strategies of occupation often created de facto separation of Palestinians and Israelis, the construction of the wall in 2002 was the first time the Israeli government enacted steps to literally separate Palestinians and Israelis en masseThrough the following case study of the separation wall in Palestine, I argue that spaces in Palestine that attract international actors can be used by Palestinian actors to access transnational spaces and networks Following Saskia Sassen's conceptualization of the global city, spaces become transnational when they are the hub of various transnational networks, and those networks are transnational because they move goods or ideas that cannot be quantified or mapped onto a foreign/domestic dichotomy2 This essay analyzes how graffiti is used as a tool by Palestinians and others to communicate messages from within Palestine to transnational audiencesPalestine has been the hub of many transnational networks, some decades old and others centuries old Historically, these networks included sites of commerce and pilgrimage, as well as those networks that gave rise to Zionist immigration in the late nineteenth century and, later, British and US support for the Zionist project in Palestine Variations of many of those networks grow and adapt in contemporary Palestine, and have grown to include those who support and oppose the occupation of Palestine This paper focuses on how graffiti in Palestine attempts to link up with networks of Christian religious tourists and anti-occupation activistsThrough analyzing the content and location of graffiti on the separation wall near Bethlehem and Jerusalem, I argue that Palestinians and others tactically use the space and networks surrounding the apartheid wall to reach transnational communities While there are instances of Palestinian voices being amplified in transnational space, graffiti analysis also presents the overwhelming (ab)use of the wall by international actors to project their own (already amplified) voices and perspectives into transnational space, setting the stage for transnational dialogue on the surface of the wall The wall is transnationalized in other ways, including the circulation of images of the wall and its graffiti, often by transnational actors with access to communications technologies Historical analyses of graffiti in Palestine reveal that Palestinians tactically used graffiti in the first intifada to create national linkages in the absence of national institutions such as state media or state education3 The presence of such nationalist graffiti on the walls of refugee camps and other places that do not entertain tourists, contrasted with the overwhelming presence of outwardly-focused, transnational messages on the separation wall, point to the tactical use of space to divert it from its intended purpose of separation, and create new meanings and linkages which challenge the structures of the occupation …

You aren’t here Reimagining the place of graffiti production in heritage studies

Abstract: Centred on the theorization, design and implications of the Sydney Graffiti Archive, this article considers how the virtual image archive intervenes in the experience of graffiti to shift negative perceptions about graffiti as damage to cultural heritage. As a parallel discursive arena (see Fraser, 1995; Hauser, 1998), the Sydney Graffiti Archive infiltrates and transgresses normative conceptions of place and cultural narratives through the formation and circulation of unofficial visual discourses embedded in graffiti photographs. This article evaluates the place of the archive as a heuristic device and heterotopic entity and encourages new ways of seeing illicit graffiti, and other everyday digital cultures of commemoration, in that it reshapes present relations to the past through photographic reframing, image digitization, interface design and user engagement. Essentially, this research is about hacking into, recovering and honouring graffiti’s discursive sites to reimagine graffiti’s place as digital ...

Cracks and Contestation: Toward an Ecology of Graffiti and Abatement

Abstract: This article argues that graffiti, through their vitality, illustrate the battle over urban enclosures and the valorization of private property. We focus on abatement—the act of removing graffiti—and by exploring graffiti and abatement we investigate mechanisms and ideologies that draw people into struggles over urban space. In this battle over space, where the state and capital attempt to assert control, a flick of paint serves as a threat as it opens up possibilities beyond the enclosure. From this vantage point there emerges an ecology of graffiti and abatement that is at once lively and dangerous.

Defining Visual Street Art: In Contrast to Political Stencils

Abstract: Street art has a variety of expressive forms and themes. This article presents findings about a particular medium of street art, stencil graffiti, and its makers in Leipzig. In three analytical procedures, stencil-makers' orientations and practices are investigated in order to explore visual street art. Based on interviews with street artists, actual stencil graffiti, and a cross-table analysis, my documentary interpretation reveals distinctive formative principles for street art-related and political stencils. The first group is created based on extensions: street artists transgress ordered meanings and produce new connotations. Political stencils, in contrast, are coined through reduction and have a typical rough-and-ready appearance.

Exploring Linguistic Aspects in Iranians' Graffiti

Abstract: There is a great range of graffiti created with variety of intentions and purposes. Graffiti as a significant linguistic event have been viewed as a source of data including linguistic studies of discourse patterns and grammar which have attracted a number linguistics researchers’ attention. The study is based on the hypothesis that graffiti, as a linguistic landscape, use specific features of language and seeks to gain an insight into linguistic peculiarities involved into graffiti writing. The data for this article consisted of two hundred written documentations in the context of Iran. In order to determine how many of gleaned data entail the linguistic peculiarities and specify the number of each peculiarity, the researcher has applied Hall’s (1980) fifteen processes in defining linguistic features on graffiti. The results revealed abundant linguistic aspects in the collected graffiti. Findings of the present study showed that linguistic features existed in 78 graffiti and in 3 cases, two linguistic features of graffiti were found. Among all graffiti entailing linguistic features, dialogues were the most frequent linguistic peculiarity involved into graffiti writing and punning on re-division of words and implication of questions with no legitimate answers are the least frequent ones.

Appropriating City Spaces: Exploring Practice, Process and Policy in Aboriginal Street Art

Abstract: In this thesis I analyze the city of Toronto’s graffiti management policies, constructing street art as a new commons to offer a means of understanding cultural production, appropriation, and resistance within the regulated environment. Using the case of 7 Generation Image Makers, an Aboriginal street art organization based in Toronto, this thesis deconstructs street art as cultural commons, arranged through neighbourhood and knowledge commons. Through interviews conducted with artists, group discussions, and document analysis, this thesis offers an opportunity to develop a new context for understanding street art as a space for both cultural production and resistance. Created within these policy structures, 7 Generation murals present street art as a space for decolonization, education, and community building. Moreover, the production of specific Aboriginal teachings, environments, and histories in such a mode challenges the marginalization of Aboriginal peoples in urban centres and Canadian society, requiring a reflection on explicit cultural resistance that makes use of hegemonic structures.

Graffiti and the Critical Power of Urban Space: Gordon Matta-Clark’s Made in America and Keith Haring’s Berlin Wall Mural

Abstract: Analyzing graffiti—the image, the act, and the space in which it unfolds—reveals the institutional structures that shape urban spaces, and this is particularly evident in the context of Wall-era We...

“Charcoal scribblings of the most rascally character”: conflict, identity, and testimony in American Civil War graffiti

Abstract: Civil War soldiers’ graffiti survive at more than 60 sites, predominantly in Virginia, including churches, court houses, caves, and houses. Although often terse and fragmentary, they provide an intriguing insight into soldiers’ experiences. This essay offers a tentative framework for analyzing how the graffiti functioned: as informal commemoration of wartime experiences; as a social activity, displaying the loyalties, frustrations, and humor of army life; and as an invasive act, vandalizing southern property.

National Graffiti: The Textual Lives of Lewis and Clark

Abstract: Thomas Jefferson’s directions to Meriwether Lewis for the Lewis and Clark expedition commanded that the expedition members produce and preserve thorough written accounts. A wide array of texts resulted from a fervid embrace of Jefferson’s instructions. Focusing on textual forms that have been maligned, sidelined, and ignored – the expedition’s graffiti and the so-called “spurious” editions about the expedition – this essay analyzes the selective authorization of the earliest nineteenth-century Lewis and Clark materials. I argue that the expanded archive shows that the literary production Jefferson imagined would write the Louisiana Territory into the United States introduced a range of textual forms, authorial bodies, and territorial visions that challenges rather than consolidates the nation-building project.

The Perpetuation of Graffiti Art Subculture

Abstract: Graffiti art and the subculture that supports it is a form of graffiti that differs from gang graffiti, immediate graffiti, and street art. This research is a qualitative analysis using partial participant observation of a graffiti art subculture in a Midwestern city. Six themes which characterize this subculture were individual identity, communication, competition, criminality, aesthetic criteria, and changing forms of communication. The implications of the findings for labeling theory and differential association theories are discussed.

Agency and Creativity in the Midst of Social Change

Abstract: The present chapter explores agency as a process of group creativity where individuals collaborate using signs with the aim of changing social reality. This is illustrated with a case study of the Egyptian street graffiti that emerged in the first year after protestors took to the streets on 25 January 2011 and on the artwork centered around Tahrir Square. Revolutionaries used graffiti as a tool to communicate their message, claim public space, and make an impact on the public. We look at how revolutionary graffiti emerged as a form of resistance during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, bringing underground artists to the surface in a collaborative effort. The phenomenon is studied from a creativity perspective, discussing what characteristics support seeing this art as an expression of agency through group creativity and what social factors facilitated it to come about. We argue that revolutionary graffiti offers an understanding of creative agency as a collaborative group process using imagination to move beyond reality and present a peaceful and liberating form of expression that would not have emerged individually. Thus, the case study of Egyptian graffiti is used to draw attention to agency found in groups, contrary to Freud’s and Le Bon’s tendencies to relate groups to violence and chaos.

Graffiti, Art, and Advertising: Re-Scaling Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation-State

Abstract: Physical barriers are an increasingly popular political mechanism for central government control over the flows of goods and people at borders. This medium also, however, serves as a canvas for unsanctioned expressions of belonging. Just as graffiti and art are deployed in the urban landscape as unconventional means of claiming space, they are utilised on international border barriers to contest prevalent political winds and re-claim local and alternative senses of who belongs and what is deemed important in debates over border policy. This paper considers unauthorised text and visual imagery on the border barriers of the Arizona-Sonora section of the US-Mexico boundary as a therapeutic reaction to a state-dominated border policy which downplays local impacts. It is argued that such imagery serves to re-scale border space and thereby re-capture a sense of belonging by those whose roles are marginalised by national politics and the neoliberal global economy.