Graffiti is an outright, spontaneous expression of your inner feelings that are anonymously displayed to a public audience.  It seems as though the public recognition of an expression through graffiti helps individuals cope with their problems better.  In Israel, following the assassination of the Israeli prime minister, the Israeli teenagers found it easier to mourn his death through the use of symbols, with graffiti being the medium outlet (Luzzatto and Jacobson 2001:363). Therefore, can graffiti act as a coping strategy to allow a person to release their anguish and emotions in an anonymous, yet public way?  I think that graffiti effectively provides this outlet because it creates anonymity.  It also allows for the public recognition of a person’s message.

Despite the amount of damage caused by the Stanley Cup rioters, everyday Vancouverites emerged from the dust and debris the next morning to clean up the downtown area.  The Bay windows were extensively damaged, and as a result, they were boarded up with wooden planks.  When the first sign of apology was placed on one of the planks, this created an outburst of emotional messages from various people who took to the wall to express their feelings.  By expressing their individual messages on the wall, it allowed everyone to cope with the riot better.  I think that this allowed people to overcome the emotional shock of the riot by using graffiti to publicly express their feelings.  This “graffiti wall” is the physical representation of the coping strategy employed by the society.

Reference

Luzzatto, D., and Jacobson, Y.

2001 Youth Graffiti as an Existential Coping Device: The Case of Rabin’s Assassination Journal of Youth Studies 4(3):351-365.

This is a picture I took at the site of Ephesus, Turkey. Often called the first example of “modern-style” graffiti, historians believe it is an advertisement for a brothel. Carved into the marble stone is a heart, a foot, a woman’s head, and money. It has been translated as: “turn left at the crossroads where you can buy a woman’s love.” Awesome, right? What really struck me about this is how it disrupts the prevalent viewpoint that graffiti is a modern social ill, affecting inner-city neighborhoods. To the contrary, graffiti is found throughout the ancient world.

J.A. Baird and Claire Taylor note that many archaeologists also project their own negative opinions of graffiti onto ancient groups: “ancient examples are given as evidence of the ‘less educated,’ the ‘subversive,’ or the ‘vulgar’ in ancient societies without much interrogation of the idea” (Baird and Taylor 2011: 1). As I searched for articles on “ancient graffiti” I had trouble because almost all of the ones I found were about modern graffiti defacing prized monuments – from Peruvian ruins to cave art from Utah. Of course this is a huge problem. But how come we don’t hear more about graffiti that was actually created in ancient times? I believe this reflects a bias towards valuing the ancients while devaluing modern graffiti art, no matter how spectacular and artistically creative it is. Banksy anyone? In a couple of thousand years archaeologists might be digging up our own monuments, so lets give them something to look at!

By Luke Griscom Benjamin

References

2011 Baird, J.A. and Claire Taylor. “Introduction.” In Ancient Graffiti in Context, eds. J.A. Baird and Claire Taylor. New York: Routledge.

On your way to Granville Island, your eye might catch a glimpse of three interesting murals. One of them seems to tell a story:  the deep red, white and black colors, oblong shapes and strange letters celebrate the tale of Raven and his efforts to bring light into this world. Looking up the name of the artists and the story behind the commission of this piece you might encounter a very different type of celebration.

Mural Under Granville Street Bridge, (Detail).
Taken on the 4/02/12

The Graffiti Management Program Web page (2008) states, “Graffiti is often associated with crimes” and proposed numerous solutions to erase the offending tags. However, the story of the mural itself is nowhere to be found and even the name of one of the artist (Corey Bulpitt) seemed to be wrongly acknowledged. When I saw this particular artwork, my interest was sparked and I expected to find a great deal of information about the meaning of the forms and shapes and the idea of mixing tales and a particular medium (street art) in order to make a powerful statement. However, the city of Vancouver website fails in providing interesting comments of this particular piece, involuntarily juxtaposing it with messages qualifying street art as criminal, marginal and potentially dangerous.

When reading the web page Beat Nation, Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture, it is explains that Hip Hop culture gives “youth new tools to rediscover First Nations culture” (Alteen) and a sense of empowerment as well as helping raise “awareness through means other than violence” (Willard). Instead of using commissioned pieces as a way to fight unwanted graffiti, the City of Vancouver could celebrate the promotion of art and culture and send a positive message of acceptance and sharing to every citizen.

Elsa Chanez

References:

Alteen, Glenn. Beat Nation, Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture. Accessed on February,

8^th 2012. http://www.beatnation.org/index.html

City of Vancouver. Graffiti. Accessed on February,

8^th 2012. http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/streets/graffiti/index.htm

Willard, Tania. “Medicine Beats and Ancestral Rhythms”. Beat Nation, Hip Hop as

Indigenous Culture. Accessed on February, 9^th 2012. http://www.beatnation.org/curatorial-statements.html

While many might not recognize this, this graffiti is a reference to the popular video game Half Life. I initially found it amusing; the dichotomous mixture of gaming to the rogue medium is an awkward combination. However, the more I analyzed it, the more I realized it actually serves as a testament to both the mainstream popularity of geek and graffiti culture.

Recently, graffiti has gained a wider appreciation of the public and participation. According to Richard Lachmann, graffiti is no longer solely by underground political activists, and has since become a collective medium shared by a wide range of artists. (Lachmann 239) Nonetheless, the symbolic themes of graffiti still hold true: freedom of expression, rebellious portrayal and the essence of breaking the cultural norms of society. (243)

 Through graffiti, geek fans are sending a message, but one that is less politically motivated and more grounded in a social validation for their video game fandom. Tagging and graffiti in public areas is not merely art, it carries the prospect for wider public recognition and appeal. (Tadai 11) Through graffiti, geeks are demonstrating that their fandom not only deserves public display, but additionally gives the work street credence and a genuine “coolness”. (14) By cementing an iconic video game symbol on an abandoned house with the rebellious and socially deviant medium as graffiti vandalism, these graffiti geeks demonstrate the rebellious nature of their culture.

Using graffiti, these geeks argue their love is not something simply for socially distant intellectuals but should be respected by anyone.

[Citation Needed]

Lachmann, Richard. “Graffiti as a Career and Ideology.” American Journal of Sociology. 94.2 (2010): 229-250. Print..

Tadai, Mindy. “The Clashing of Culture and Capitalism in Graffiti.” Beautiful Losers. Ed. Aaron Rose. 2cd ed. Chicago: 2004. 10-15. Print. <http://wrt-intertext.syr.edu/xv/beautifullosers.pdf>.

Image provided to me by a friend in CA

There are different kinds of graffiti; some are beautiful and/or creative images, while others are simply names scrawled on public surfaces. Whatever the context, all graffiti holds a political message, whether explicit or implicit. The very act of ‘defacing’ public space is rebellious, an act of resistance to or defiance of authority or tradition.

This kind of resistance informs us of wider constructs of power. Public space, while theoretically belonging to everyone, is under the control of government. Marking a public surface can be perceived as an act of resistance to the authority of local government, a real or imagine class of elites, or the entire economic-political system. Because of its defiant tone, graffiti is often characterized by anonymity, affording the author to express themselves in ways they would not otherwise (Islam, 2010). There are instances, however, where the authors feel comfortable exposing themselves, and these often occur when they are famed individuals, already renowned for their defiance of the hegemonic state. They may be members of minorities, whether ethnic or ideological, but they typically have connections to the regime they are resisting, whether through influence or affluence, or else they would probably not feel secure revealing their names. Lord Byron was infamous in his time for participating in Romanticism (MacCarthy, 2002), a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms, and his name can be seen carved in stone in buildings across Europe. While the type of graffiti is not particularly scandalous—they are minimal and usually on foreign soil—I would argue that the political importance of graffiti is the act itself.

References

Islam, Gazi

2010 Backstage Discourse and the Emergence of Organizational Voices: Exploring Graffiti and Organization. Journal of Management Inquiry 19(3):246-260

MacCarthy, Fiona

2002 Byron: Life and Legend

Rafferty, Pat

1991 Discourse on Difference. Visual Anthropology Review 7(2):77-84

This image of graffiti is one I took of my friends standing beside the John Lennon Wall in Prague. The graffiti on this wall was started in the 80’s by Czech youth who used it as a way to demonstrate free-speech (Kruse, 2005). Graffiti was used as a tool for a non-violent rebellion against the neo-Stalinism at the time (Kruse, 2005). According to Bren (2008) it is this youth who painted on this wall during the last year of communism, who became central to the Velvet Revolution. John Lennon strongly advocated freedom and peace in his music, and Kruse (2005) believes this is why the youth praised him. His lyrics were written in english which was essential to their resistance, it helped to define a boundary between them and the government ( Ferrel 1993). Lennon provided an way in which they were able to protest the government and promote the need for a peaceful change. 

This wall used to be whitewashed by the authorities (Kruse, 2005) but now it only changes because of the new graffiti overlapping the previous. This graffiti is a monument for it marks how people were able to create change. The wall still has politically fuelled graffiti but a difference is a global audience can add to it. This graffiti is an example to which other politically driven graffiti strives for because it succeeded in creating a change.

Follow this link to see the variety of  graffiti this wall has had. 

By: Kate MacMillan

Bren, P. (2008). Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall … Is the West the Fairest of Them All?: Czechoslovak Normalization and Its (Dis)Contents. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 9(4):831-854.

Ferrel, J. (1993). The World Politics of Wall Painting. Social Justice. 20(3/4):188-202.

Kruse II, R. (2005). Contemporary Geographies of John Lennon. Critical Studies in Media Communication. 22(5):456-461

Alex Cynader

I have walked past this trio of tags well over a hundred times; it is right across the street from my house, where my car is parked, where I walk to catch the bus, yet it never caught my eye until two days ago when I thought to look. Many people raise the idea that graffiti is a type of modern art, with a meaning behind it (c.f. Rafferty, Discourse on Difference), but by taking no notice of these squiggly lines it beg the question, is graffiti causing any social effects when its existence is going unnoticed? The distinction must be drawn, then, between the three ‘tags’ pictured above, and the arguably more organized and socially-influential medium of ‘street art’ done by ‘writers’. Faye Docuyanan raises the interesting delineation between graffiti artists in an essay on its illegality, Governing Graffiti in Contested Urban Spaces. She notes that, “taggers, often emphasize quantity over quality, and write primarily to obtain fame among their peers. Writers, on the other hand, place more emphasis on the development of skills and style and spend significant amounts of time planning and creating elaborate productions” (Docuyanan, 103). While this helps distinguish the two types, it arguably produces more questions of whether either types should be legal: does the method Docuyanan describe not sound the same as any respected artist? In Vancouver, it is difficult to see the harm in any graffiti, indeed, the most you see are small tags. Yet, every now and then you will stumble across a beautiful mosaic of street art, ought this be illegal? Who is it harming to have a free mural painted in an otherwise gritty area of town? It seems graffiti is an area in which more and more questions are popping up, and while the answers are not obvious, it is hoped that neither are decisions on its legality.

PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. Volume 23. Issue 1. May 2000 (Pages 103 – 121). Docuyanan, Faye: Governing Graffiti in Contested Urban Spaces.

The phrases “love your ghetto” and simply “love” might not seem like resistant or political language, but they do disrupt the stereotypes often placed on the community of the DTES.

Graffiti is a tool that has been used by minority groups to attack other minority groups with sexist, racist, or homophobic language, which often uphold privilege and inequality in society rather than resist them, a way to “enact or react to hegemonic conditions” (Rodriguez 1999:1). However, these images of graffiti reflect a different message being written in the DTES, home to many of the social tensions addressed above. Rather than tearing down other minority groups or directly criticizing authoritarian control, a message of loving your community is scrawled on the wood and in the pavement, and is done so anonymously and freely, without factors such social class, education, access, or position which so often dictate which members of society get to speak and be heard (Rodriguez 1999:2).

These words challenge hegemonic order, which often frames the neighbourhood as a place of crime, chaos, and society’s waste. The messages seen here begin to write out a new discourse among residents living in poverty that disturbs the dominating perceptions centred around the Eastside of addiction, violence, and disease. It’s a new message written by the community and for the community inviting radical peace in the face of societal barriers, inequality, and unjust systems, as is seen by the word “love” written amongst the barbed wire.

By: Sharlene Petigara

Rodriguez, Amardo, and Clair, Robin Patric.
1999   Graffiti as Communication: Exploring the Discursive Tensions of Anonymous Texts.The Southern Communication Journal 65 (1): 1.