graffiato
Friday, September 7, 2007
I think that graffiti can be a beautiful thing. To me, it epitomizes the underground, the underbelly, the alternative, the anti-establishment. It's true that some of it is ugly--I still remember going to play at the neighborhood playground to find it covered with spraypainted swastikas--but as an art form, its got meaning and grit and flair. I like how it can be employed as a playful and insightful upraised middle finger to everything too uptight and narrowminded about authority (see banksy). I love seeing colors and shapes bloom on a decaying urban wall. It's a pleasant surprise. It shouldn't be there. But it is, evidence of humanity's drive to create things, to share ideas, to express itself, regardless of rules or location or abundance of artistic materials. It's ingenious and clever. It's about making something extraordinary out of something ordinary, creating a diversion from and a commentary about the mundane.
I just finished reading the wikipedia article about it. Here are some highlights:
"The eruption of Vesuvius preserved graffiti in Pompeii... One inscription shows a phallus accompanied by the text, mansueta tene: "Handle with care"."
"Disappointed love also found its way onto walls in antiquity:
- Whoever loves, go to hell. I want to break Venus's ribs
- with a club and deform her hips.
- If she can break my tender heart
- why can't I hit her over the head?"
"With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign which involved people in various states spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." However due to illegalities some of the "street artists" were arrested and charged with vandalism"
"Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic Light-emitting diodes as new mediums for graffiti writers. The Italian artist Kaso is pursuing regenerative graffi through experimentation with abstract shapes and deliberate modification of previous Graffiti artworks."
See the Graffiti Research Lab for yourself. The "light graffiti" it advocates is not only aesthetically awesome, but leaves behind no paint or scratches...so it technically isn't vandalism
With Hektor, graffiti gets digital. Hektor's a "portable spray paint output device for laptop computers". props to Hektor's creators! what a cool machine.
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I tried my hand at cardboard stenciling and spraypaint, a la banksy, last quarter. It was hard. There's a lot of advance planning involved--with complex pictures, you have to figure out what to cut out first and how, and how to lay the paint down (which was difficult in itself! aerosol paintcans are temperamental) so you get the right colors down.
I managed to snag some free spray paint (five colors, including turquoise, silver, and royal purple) from an outgoing product design student right before I left school for the summer. Hopefully I'll have time to experiment with them. artistically and legally, of course.
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And of course, some facebook Graffiti that I'm particularly proud of. It came out during finals week and became the bane of my spring quarter GPA. I became a Graffiti junkie. Mostly I just made bad stick figure drawings, but some of them turned out well.
from top to bottom:
1. Moon Woman, or Best Use of Time Spent Procrastinating an IHUM Paper
2. Karen's Birthday Unicorn
3. Man and Burro Traversing Sideways Cliff in Front of Burnt Sienna Sky (done completely with my laptop mouse)
People I owe Graffiti to:
- Ben
- Jessica
- Amy
- Alex O
- Kontien
Posted bySHELLY! at 5:45 PM
Labels: graffiti