Writing On The Wall

I’ve been meaning to write a post about graffiti. It is one of those perennial hot topics. Give it some time and something will turn up about it (and usually New York City Councilman Peter Vallone will have something to say about it). Well, I actually have had two things pop up, neither one really worthy of a full post on its own, but combined…

Anyway, first up we have a class being taught at Parsons New School called “Geek Graffiti” it adds a high-tech slant to the old art form, turning your typical piece into a neon light show as it projects the tagging onto massive structures, in the end leaving no permanent marking or damage. Of course in typical fashion Peter Vallone had this to say “They want to study what the motivation is behind graffiti writers,” [he] fumed. “It’s vandalism, notoriety and gang communication. That is the motivation behind graffiti. No one needs a course to study it. This fascination with graffiti really needs to end.”

I know it is wishful thinking, but Vallone really needs to re-analyze his stance on graffiti. He needs to move beyond what graffiti was in the early 80s and realize it has a far deeper cultural relevance that goes beyond just notoriety and gang communication — that it has become a form of subservient protest and political expression that reaches beyond just gang culture. Of course it is also vandalism…

Oh and the project that was written about in the New York Post also earned the student an A, as the professor said that anyone who garnered media attention would automatically get one. The article is here.

Moving on-
Los Angeles has started a new initiative in their war on graffiti. In the past it has all been about painting over and covering up graffiti as soon as possible, but now they are using a system to track writers. Taking photos of their work using GPS cameras that track the date and time that the piece that is then loaded into a database allowing the police to have a listing of an artist’s work and file charges accordingly. Using this new system, the police busted two teens caught writing and fined them $22,000. So, if you are writing in LA, watch your back (The article from Reuters is here)