If the above is used as advertising, is it truly graffiti? This tag, found next to the Buchanan Tower sign at UBC, asks such a question. Advertising inherently links a product to a creator, while graffiti is characterized by anonymity and resistance to authority. As such, they seem like veritable opposites. However, the intent of both can coincide, such as with this piece, as seen in the chosen text and placement.

Discorder is the magazine for the UBC Student Radio Society, named after a portmanteau of disorder and recorder, which reflects the magazine’s independence and focus on music dissemination. Tags traditionally emphasize the writer’s identity as a way of demanding power and attention (Carrington 2009: 417), but this tag advertises the radio station and society. Does its lack of true anonymity negate its status as graffiti? I argue that it does not. The group might be officially associated with UBC, but the university certainly would not have wanted them to graffiti Buchanan Tower. This tag is small enough to slip under the radar of UBC’s cleaning crews, but is still evokes lawlessness and disorder in form and text on a building that is famously industrial-looking. Also, tags of gang names are similarly advertise a local group. As such, its placement sub-textually advertises this magazine as opposing the mainstream, even of the UBC system itself. Discorder benefits from this aura, without experiencing stigmatization, due to the technically-if-not-practically anonymous tag itself.

References

Carrington, Victoria
2009 I write, therefore I am: texts in the city. Visual Communication 8(4):409-425.

Dickinson, Maggie
2008 The Making of Space, Race, and Place : New York City’s War on Graffiti, 1970 — the Present. Critique of Anthropology 28(1):27-45.

Rafferty, Pat
1991 Discourse on Difference: Street Art/ Graffiti Youth. Visual Anthropology Review 7(2):77-84.