What kind of implement is a scribe?
Fuck that, I catch one of these bastards, they will pay in blood and splintered teeth, it’s the only way they’ll learn.
[Zentster, I think it’s called “scratchitti”.
They scratch their “tag” into glass or plexiglass using anything they can get their grubby hands on.
Heh, I’d like some bloody art from the local grafitti boys down here in sunny Bournemouth. Just for fun the local pricks decided to spray the number plates of my car with silver paint, and to top it off the bloody car was even parked 20 feet from the road on my private driveway. Of course the covering of plates instantly renders the car illegal to drive. A bloody pain to get off and it can’t even be considerd tagging as the damn car moves lol. Does that mean that when I’m at work their territory moves 15 miles east. Just for the hell of it they pulled the radio aerial off and actually unscrewed and removed the rear windscreen wiper too. Bah, wanton vandalism, I’d pay money to have people doing some decent artwork on fences round here. Well not really, I’d kick their arses (verbally, I’m not trying to get myself arrested for any kind of vigilante stuff here) and try and get em prosecuted.
Bastards, the lot of 'em.
Merrin
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Just because people are poor and disaffected doesn’t give them the right to be criminals.
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Assuming they live in the neighbourhoods they tag, they are probably making their own poverty worse, by driving marginal businesses out of business, lowering property values, and encouraging crime.
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My store is not their territory; it is my property. Their territory ends where the sidewalk does.
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Blinkered apologists like you will just watch as a neighbourhood or city slides into anarchy, tut-tutting about how Society has failed these poor, misunderstood young people.
Heh. I’m no apologist for the shitheads who have daubed my walls and my street with their seemingly pointless tags.
And I agree with all of your points.
But what I’m suggesting (and what sub-cultural theorists would say) is that graffiti is more than just a crappy paint job. It’s a way for those who ARE disaffected to shove their finger in face of mainstream society by attacking the material things we value (like our properties). More than that though, the graffiti subculture provides a ‘place’ for those who are not valued by our success-driven society. Having it’s own sets of rules and regulations and even a ‘pecking order’, it is it’s own community that offers a sense of belonging to those who don’t belong elsewhere.
You ain’t gonna fix graffiti problem by just applying criminal sanctions. I’m not excusing it, or even justifying it. What I’m saying is that to fix a problem, you’ve got to understand it. Then, maybe, we might be able to come up with some better solutions than we have been able to muster so far.
I live near a railway line and the fences along it have all been decorated surprisingly I was very moved when I saw a group doing an RIP piece for one of their own that was actually quite beautiful. It stood for a while then some one else came along and tagged over it and now we seem to be having a graffiti war, hell someone recently tagged an old cactus that grows there.
I am not seeing the rules or order you speak of Bucky, just more and more damned grafitti spreading out from that area where it does little harm into areas where it does. One of my neighbours has to repaint his fence monthly as he chooses to not have it turned into a gallery of the garish.
Of course if any of it stands long enough we will probably call it rock art and turn it into a tourist industry. We are good at that.
let’s try
…decorated. Surprisingly…
there, that’s better.
But the rules are those within the group: what appears as incomprehensible vandalism actually does bear some meaning for those who engage in the acts. One of them you mentioned yourself. Painting over someone elses tag or piece (especially if the original ‘artist’ is one of renown is an act of symbolic aggression and does indeed lead to ‘tagging wars’ where each group tries to claim their territory by wiping out the other.
I understand what you are saying Bucky but I fear you are romanticising it hugely. Any kid with a texta can upset the balance and in my area it seems that they are all tagging over eachother’s tags now, there is none of the respect you mentioned to be seen.
I do not know how you can refer to it as a community, that’s all. I agree with many of your points but not that one.
Just to clarify, as it is not only those who know the rules who play the game I do not believe it is valid to describe the problem as belonging to a community or subculture.
I do not deny there are those who feel part of a community of grafitti artists but many of those with spray cans or permanent markers do not belong, they are just bloody vandals of the same mindset as those who throw rocks through the windows of factories or empty houses.
There is a hierarchy and almost formal set of rules in prison culture too; that doesn’t make it any more worthy of dissection and analysis.
The simple fact is that these little – am I in the Pit? Okay, yes, good – these little fuckers have no respect for anyone but themselves and their criminal ilk. So no way in hell should they be given the respect of having their “culture” understood and directed into more useful pursuits.
In terms of property crimes, nothing brings out my ire like graffiti. Nothing.
In the neighborhood where I grew up, residents who had gotten tired of cleaning graffiti off of their garage doors started applying liberal coats of paraffin wax to the doors so that paint wouldn’t adhere. So the little assholes started tagging the brick. It continued until one homeowner thought that someone was breaking into his house, opened a window, and smashed the hell out of one of the punks with a baseball bat. Suddenly their “culture” and their “art” didn’t mean so much to them not when it might come at the expense of having their teeth knocked down their throats. Craven, honorless, shpos.
You know what these little miscreants deserve? First, they should have everything that they own taken and doused with paint and made ugly and crappy looking. And then, they should spend many thousands of hours cleaning up the shit they spew all over their communities.
Let me repeat again…this time with emphasis:
Heh. I’m no apologist for the shitheads who have daubed my walls and my street with their seemingly pointless tags.
It’s not out of respect for them that it is necessary to understand the mechanics of their subculture…it’s so that we can look at ways of fixing the fucking problem. Sure, we can impose more harsh penalties (and for some of the ‘itinerant’ taggers like you mentioned Thyles this might have some sort of deterrent effect).
But for the graffiti gangs, part of the attraction is the risk-factors involved in getting caught. Greater kudos is given to those who take the greater chances, and getting busted adds to their prestige within the group. It’s part of their culture. It’s not a culture I agree with, and it is one that makes no sense to my life, but it IS a very real part of their system. If you think this is a romanticised view, then maybe you and I have a different understanding of the notion of ‘romanticising’ something.
Look, graffiti is at epidemic proportions in most urbanised areas right across the world. Current policies are NOT curbing the problem at all. We can sit back and do nothing, or we can try to understand the graffiti phenomenon and why young men (mostly) from disadvantaged backgrounds (mostly) who are themselves unemployed or non-attendees at school (mostly) find such great satisfaction in spray-painting their tag on walls. And with that understanding, we might possibly be able to come up with a more creative solution.
That’s all I’m trying to say.
Let me repeat again…this time with emphasis:
Heh. I’m no apologist for the shitheads who have daubed my walls and my street with their seemingly pointless tags.
It’s not out of respect for them that it is necessary to understand the mechanics of their subculture…it’s so that we can look at ways of fixing the fucking problem. Sure, we can impose more harsh penalties (and for some of the ‘itinerant’ taggers like you mentioned Thyles this might have some sort of deterrent effect).
But for the graffiti gangs, part of the attraction is the risk-factors involved in getting caught. Greater kudos is given to those who take the greater chances, and getting busted adds to their prestige within the group. It’s part of their culture. It’s not a culture I agree with, and it is one that makes no sense to my life, but it IS a very real part of their system. If you think this is a romanticised view, then maybe you and I have a different understanding of the notion of ‘romanticising’ something.
Look, graffiti is at epidemic proportions in most urbanised areas right across the world. Current policies are NOT curbing the problem at all. We can sit back and do nothing, or we can try to understand the graffiti phenomenon and why young men (mostly) from disadvantaged backgrounds (mostly) who are themselves unemployed or non-attendees at school (mostly) find such great satisfaction in spray-painting their tag on walls. And with that understanding, we might possibly be able to come up with a more creative solution.
That’s all I’m trying to say.
Really? All you have to do is clean the wall and then wait.
This was the bit I believe to be romanticising and the bit I was referencing in my first post. In my example a stunningly beautiful piece of artwork done in eulogy to someone in that so called community of yours was done over by some git who wanted to express that they had been wandering by that morning. No art involved in the second vandalism of the first and suddenly it is all damned ugly down there where before it was possible to see art. Now it is a free for all that is spreading into my street.
Contrary to your romantic notion, that wall of yours is not safe by having good work on it because while there may well be a sub culture of graffiti gangs they are not the only ones doing the tagging. In fact I think you will find your neighbours get rather pissed off when they find their fences are done over by those who feel the area has been declared friendly.