And I could have done without that accusation of hypocrisy, and stealing. Have you ever seen a scrap pile on a construction site? It’s a big heap of muddy plywood pieces, framing lumber, plumbing parts, electrical wires, etc. Anyone with half a brain could see that it is scrap, *aka *refuse, *aka *garbage, *aka *shit nobody wants anymore.
If you put an old TV out for the garbage man, is the guy who picks it up before the garbage man gets there stealing? Trespassing?
How about the guy who collects cans for resale? Is he stealing? After all, it’s not his property, now is it?
What is your problem, exactly? I take junk and turn it into art. I pretty much have to go where the junk is to do that. The junk would end up in the landfill. How the hell is that remotely equivalent to vandalising someone’s property?
There’s a business owner in Beverly, Massachusetts who’s invited taggers to use one wall of his building, the one that faces the train tracks (but is separated from them by several yards and a fence). The long one-story wall is covered with layer upon layer of tagging, mostly sigs but sometimes some amazingly fine images. There’s rarely any grafitti on the buildings nearby.
That’s great. I suspect it so rare as to be statiscally insignificant. At any rate, it is not really on point with the question of whether tagging is vandalism, or whether culling from a scrap heap is stealing.
As an aside, it honestly never ocurred to me that the concept of culling from a scrap heap would be so fraught with ambiguity.
Look, Contrapuntal. I don’t have a problem with what you do. But your original post jumped out at me because it sounded like this:
"Hey, those posers! Taking the easy way by using other people’s properties as a canvas! Those thieves!
They should do what I do and take materials from construction sites!"
Later, you added that you work at construction sites (which would give you a legitimate connection to the work site) and that you don’t advocate trespassing . These ingredients were missing from your orginal post, and I just wanted to make sure you weren’t recommending doing illegal activites to avoid doing illegal activities.
I have no problem with what you do, Mr. Defensive. I was only seeking clarification, which I got with a bunch of hostility wrapped around it.
“Culling from a scrap heap” is not fraught with ambiguity, as it suggests a person will be pulling material from an area clearly designated for waste. A homeless person rooting around in a restuarant dumpster for food is “cullling from a scrap heap”.
“Scrounging for scraps”–which is what you said initially–suggests someone is going hunting for materials to take from a private site. A homeless person rooting around in somebody’s garage for old rags is “scrounging for scraps”.
The ambiguity is not a big deal, but no one misunderstood you on purpose so just chill, why doncha?
I can certainly see merit in kambuckta’s hypothesis. There is that element of social disconnection from what I’ve seen here. But there’s also the analogy of dogs pissing up against a wall to mark territory, and the thrill of doing something anti-social – and getting away with it scot-free.
Yes, they’re vandals. They’re contributing to visual pollution most of the time. True art in that form is in the minority of instances. It annoys me to see public amenities, building, walls and the scenery around rail corridors covered with their piss-work. But they don’t deserve to die doing it. If a kid gets hit by a train while taking a shortcut across the tracks – said kid shouldn’t have been there, he/she endangered themselves, surely they could be considered (by some) to be “Darwin’s Award candidates”? But we feel sorry for them and their parents. Same with the tagger who was killed. Bloody idiot shouldn’t have been there – but he didn’t deserve to die for being an idiot.
Would you want someone scrounging around on your property, taking it upon themselves to decide what’s scrap and what’s not?
If it’s a clearly marked garbage pile, that’s one thing. But if its material left laying on the grounds of a construction site, then you need to ask for permission before you take it. That’s all I’m saying.
Absolutely, because if they’re stealing garbage and get injured, the construction company has insurance.
I’m still a little unclear here. Are they supposed to go to the site when the men are there working, or when they’re finished for the day? Should they have hardhats? How about steel-toed boots?
You accused me of hypocrisy. You accused me of stealing. You put words in my mouth by claiming that I was the one designating what was scrap and what was not. What do you expect, flowers and candy?
There you go again. It’s a given that the material is scrap. A really huge fucking clue was when I called it “scrap plywood,” not “construction materials left lying around.”
That’s pretty much where the scrap goes.
Exactly. Good catch. Scrap plywood. What about that is ambiguous? Scrap, garbage, refuse, shit nobody else wants, things being thrown away – what the hell is so difficult about this?
Have your sister retract her allegations why doncha, and maybe I’ll chill.
So what we were all supposed to reason is that you were suggesting that taggers all start working for construction companies so they’ll have legal access and proper knowledge of what is “scrap” on the construction site? Great advice, moron, though I can see why you think it’s “less easy” that way.
How are you expecting they get to the rollaway dumpster, though? Should they be on the jobsite when work is being done? Will the construction company want kids with spraycans wandering around the site after the work is done? What sort of safety equipment would you recommend?
I think this is great. There really is a lot to be said for the need for people (maybe especially young people) to make things. Very interesting hypothesis.
Hu. I never thought of myself as owning the rail cars before. They are, to me, bland objects that get in my way sometimes then pass into the distance, never to be seen again. Do Americans “own” the rail cars? I was under the impression (perhaps from Monopoly) that the rail-ways were independently owned, but I never really looked into it. I would be offended by graffiti on passenger rail cars, but freight ones? Not really.
As for everyone jumping all over Contrapuntal for suggesting that people wishing to express themselves artistically use refuse instead of the sides of personal property: Construction sites have big piles of what is obviously garbage next to them. Sometimes these piles are actually in big, open dumpsters. We aren’t talking about wondering through high-rises getting in the way and looking for potential junk. All anyone would need to do to get some scrap plywood or drywall or whatever would be to go to a construction site, ask anyone working there if it was okay to take something from the trash pile, and, having secured permission, take it.
Baring this, surely some sort of cardboard or waste paper is available somewhere to paint on if one is so inclined.