Slashdot Mirror
Reverse Graffiti
glawrie writes "UK Graffiti artist 'Moose' thought he had come up with a perfect socially friendly approach to his art - to trade paints for cleaning fluid. An article in the UK's Independent Newspaper describes how he has created graffiti by taking '... any dirty inner-city wall or pavement, place a template over it, and scrub the concrete clean, revealing an image as sharp as any spray paint which fades with time.' Moose was commissioned by a subsidiary of drinks manufacturer Diageo to create some 'clean' graffiti in Leeds to promote their vodka brand Smirnoff to local students. However, this work was subsequently condemned by Gerry Harper, a Leeds councillor, as 'sheer vandalism'. With wonderful irony, the council demanded that the artist 'clean-up' the graffiti that appeared in one of the city's gloomiest underpasses. Maybe all those senseless vandals out there will now think twice in future before scrawling 'Clean Me' on the back of vehicles overdue for a wash... But perhaps the state is now going too far - surely it is only a matter of time before rainfall is similarly targetted by the good guys."
They can't show any pictures of it? Anybody have links?
...
In my town (Halifax, Canada) we have a few walls which are owned by local companies which have been 'donated' to local grafitti artists. You can go down there any time and see a lighted wall of absolutely amazing artwork, and it changes almost every day.
I don't see what the big problem is.. just give the artists enough places to paint and the problem will reduce if not disappear. What's the problem with that?
You know, I believe in people taking initiative and helping out the community, and I also believe in taking responsibilities and powers away from government, so I think it would be wonderful if people would take a little bit of time once in a while and clean some random part of public property. It will only make the community a cleaner place to live. Ooooooh well.
The solution is, of course, for the City to keep everything clean, then this doesn't work. The (hidden) message to clean up the city is the one that the City really has the problem with because they can't claim that it is clean when a message 'written in clean' is easily readable.
Why do some people think that they have the right to deface property they don't own in any way?
Some buildings benefit from a hundred years of "patina", and marring that affects their value.
Not only that, but it reduces the presentability of the neighborhood, reducing property values for everyone.
And it's just selfish, stupid, and ugly.
I just hope that anyone about to defend this consider how much you hate what you think of as unwanted commercial messages all over the place. Besides pop-up blockers, many /. readers block banner ads and the like as well.
It's not their place to be placing these messages. It's not a matter of betterment of public spaces, that's just a distraction from the fact that these are unwanted commercial messages placed where the advertiser wants them.
-PM
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
You'd imagine the corporate world would have enough avenues for subjecting us to a continuous barrage of advertising without the need for graffiti, no matter how cleverly disguised as "cleaning", or illegally flyposting (hello Sony). Ads on TVs, in newspapers, on billboards, in trains, on the windows in trains, the bottom half of the "mind your fingers" warning on the train doors, the entire train, the front of the steps leading from the platform, stickers on the ticket gates, the windows of taxis, one side of my commuter pass, at the bottom of my shop receipts... it never stops. I dunno, my office is the most advert-free environment I see during the day.
But perhaps the state is now going too far - surely it is only a matter of time before rainfall is similarly targetted by the good guys.
Sorry, but I agree that "clean graffiti" is still graffiti. No, this is not like the rain. If you don't believe me, then consider this situation: I make some "clean graffiti" in the shape of a swastika or making racial slurs. Are you offended, or are you happy that I'm cleaning a few selected parts of a gaffiti-covered wall? Personally, I would be offended if someone did this. So how do you these type of messages if you don't acknowledge that "clean graffiti" really is an unauthorized message (graffiti).
Except that he cleaned the wall, he didn't add anything to it, it just so happened that he cleaned in a pattern and then stopped, if you don't like it, you can keep cleaning the wall, since by definition, a clean wall can not be "disfigured" by the addition of more cleaning.
I don't consider it vandalism or graffiti, it is an ad, but it is also a public service and unique. He should patent the idea and then sue the city whenever they try to clean a wall.
And if there wasn't a stereo, it couldn't be stolen.
I hope thats sarcasm. Yes, he cleaned the wall... so that it formed an advertisement. We see so many ads already, do you want ads on land that YOU own without YOU getting anything from it? City land is the property of the public and is worth protecting.
Yes, sure, except cleaning the wall would cost the public money. Why shouldn't Smirnoff pay to continue the cleaning? Answer: They should.
A public service? Are you off your rocker? It's a Smirnoff ad! I for one happen to find the beverage rather tasty - creativity juice, I call it - but I think there are many social workers who would argue that alcohol advertisements constitute a public service...
I think I will patent breathing. And then you'll have to pay me to live.
The problem here is that the pattern itself conveys information independent of the medium. It doesn't matter much whether the pattern is formed from clean spots or spray paint.
If instead of spam, the guy had used cleaner to write offensive obscene or racist messages, nobody would be trying to defend him on this technicality.
Seeing how he's operating under the god given mission of selling vodka to sixteen year olds, I fail to see what's got the Leeds council in an uproar.
/sarcasm
"Smirnoff considers the artist's work a perfect way to reach a teenage market "
An excellent idea. Microsoft should pay an roaming artist (dressed in a butterfly suit of course) to fingerpaint "Linux sucks!" into dirty cars/windows.
One of the single biggest problems this country has is the letter of the law is far more important than the intent. It's one of the reasons we are so over regulated. Most lawyers make their livings by distorting the law to benefit their clients. "We all know what the law means but it says this." Criminals get off and corporations get away with acts that should be and in truth are criminal. It's all spin. Their intent was to deface the property to advertise their product. This is obviously illegal. Is it nessacary to create a new law everytime a new method of breaking the law becomes availible?
But perhaps the state is now going too far
I'm sorry, but did I miss a meeting? Is this now an obligatory inclusion in all articles? Must all articles now declare the state is going too far, our rights are trounced, or privacy is at dire risk?!?
I won't even attempt to argue the rights of property owners, the state's responsiblity to protect property, social mores, etc...
davejenkins.com |
He caused an image to appear permanently (that is, for a non-brief period) on a wall that did not belong to him. He thought of a clever way to do it, but that is not the same thing as saying that he had the right to do it.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Art is evocative. The best is provocative. Consider that when making judgements on the works of others
** Keep Music Evil **
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
think the USA patriot act is scary, the title of that UK 'ACT' scares the poop out of me.
does that cover
smoking,
dreadlocks
Mohawks
cursing
smelling bad
not kneeling to the police as they pass by
anyone- info about same?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
After all is said and done all you have there is a vodka advertisement in a place where did not use to be a vodka advertisement. And that is just more mind pollution.
It is just another thing that catches your attention, forces you to read it, etc, etc. That is why billboards, for example are considered pollution no matter how clean they are. Its not pollution in the strctest meaning of the word, but it does make the landscape look cheaper and dirtier.
People say "it would just be dirty nevertheless". Well it sucks the city has not cleaned this stuff up, but even if the wall was covered with dirt, it will not be so bad, because it would be unform dirt, that just fades into the background, does not call attention to itself, and thus does not bother people.
And also when you clean some letters into a wall, you are not really doing any cleaning. When someone cleans "wash me" into a dirty car, is the car any cleaner? Not really.
In deciding whether or not you support people "cleaning" their message onto property that does not belong to them, ask yourself the following question::
How would you like it if representatives of Coke, Smirnoff, Pepsi, etc - kept their eyes open for your dirty vehicles, house windows, and actively posted their messages
i.e. "buy our products, or at least clean up your stuff"
all over your property? Would you say that it is your own damn fault for not keeping your stuff cleaner, or would you protest?
Interested in Canadian Stocks?
Should people or companies be allowed to clean public areas of their own volition with no special permissions? Yes or no. If no, then fine, we need to get a permit system that allows you permission to clean public spaces. However I very much doubt anyone would seriously support this position.
If people ARE allowed to go out and clean because they want to, or because someone pays them to (which is how it currently is) then you don't really have a right to tell them how. If I clean up a street but do a half assed job, still leaving trash (but not adding any) that's fine. If I go to clean a wall of grafitti, but get tired halfway through and leave the other half, that's fine. If I clean a park of all litter except cigarette buts to make a point, that's also fine.
He's partically cleaning a wall to make it in to an ad. That's fine. He's adding no additonal paint or anything, just cleaning off part of it to make the remainder look like something, that's fine. If this offends you so much, YOU are welcome to go clean the rest of it. Much as he could partially clean it, you may partially or completely clean it.
If the city and the public want these walls protected then they should have removed the grafitti. Trying to say the grafitti, which is adding paint ot the wall and is illegal, is fine, but REMOVING some of that paint ot make an ad is not is stupid. If he's being paid by the city to completely clean the walls, or doing it as required community service, they have a right to bitch. If he's doing it because he wants to, they have no right.
As I said, they, or the public, can clean it ALL up and eliminate the problem. That's what a town I used to live in does. To keep grafitti to a mininimum they clean it up FAST after it happens, like within a day. This deters many vandals, since they know their work will be gone in 24 hours, and they risk being arrested if caught.
What is even funnier is that the only reason the city wanted it "cleaned up" is becuase they weren't paid for the adspace.
Yeah we would. Because our objections are based on principles, not emotions.
A simple way for both sides to win in this dustup would be to require the advertiser to completely clean the surface after some reasonable period has elapsed. That way the city gets cleaned up and the advertiser gets their message out.
And the most provocative art of all is created when a set of keys is your brush and a car door is the canvas.
Condemning graffiti isn't making an artistic judgment; it's standing up against the malicious defacement of public and private property.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
You know, spammers use arguments a lot like that. Reaching out to unwilling audiences and all. Even committing crimes in order to do so.
Good company there.
Congrats.
But if a MINORITY, URBAN kid does the same thing, everyone says "OOOH! Look at the art he made." These lower standards for minority and poor folk are a form of RACISM. Everyone should be held to the same standard.
I agree .... frankly I don't see much difference between kids tagging and dogs marking their territory .... on the other hand an artfull reworking of a billboard or a wonderfully subversive slogan where one least expects it is often a wonder to behold ....
There's a reasoning behind this practice that those outside the culture don't readily understand. An unspoken rule of bombing is that you do not paint over anyone else's graffiti unless you can do better (or want to start a fight). If a business pays a known, respected, talanted graff artist to paint a masterpiece on a wall, no two-bit tagger is going to spray over it, or they will be ostracised (if not targetted) by the local crews. It's a bit like having a lion piss in your yard to keep the cats away.
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
Can I have your home address, so that I can "shove" my ideas onto your private property?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Nice sounding words, but unless you have permision by the owners, all you are doing is damaging the property of others. Using property you did not pay for. It's not art at all, it's just vandalism. It's roughly of the same morals as writing a computer virus.
It's possible to achieve shock and suprise in art through legitimate means. but what your doing is no different if I went to your home while you were gone and peeled out in your yard, t.p.ed your trees and broke your windows. I could claim it was performance art, but somehow I don't think you'd be any happier or less willing to press charges if I were caught.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
but calm logic was a more efficient way of getting rid of that power-mad bitch than explaning my motives and the validity of my art to her (though I did try, but she wasn't smart enough to understand any of it), then a string of equally dense bureaucrats. I was pretty disapointed to be forced to censor my art though.
:-)
:
*rolls eyes* art students, god bless 'em
It goes like this
One person's "Art" is another person's "Crap".
You may have been making an artistic statement about garbage and the way people treat their environment.
The guard was also making a statement about garbage and the way people treat their environment.
Seeing as the guard was employed by the school to keep *their* walls the way *they* like them (to whatever asthetic standard they desire), your art and its associated statement (which, by the way, I have difficulty extrapolating from a bit of cigarette paper stuck on a wall above a bin), had no place there.
Had you truly been a sensitive artist, you would have understood this. It's not about The Man trying to Crush your Expression and Artistic Freedom, it's about their stuff and the way they want their stuff. Leave them be.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
It doesnt show anyone something they arnt expecting.
The people you're speaking of aren't going to see it as art anyways. Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. You simply can't show art to someone who doesn't want to see it. You can show them paint stains that took you hours to carefully render, and they'll treat it with about as much consideration as a mess left by a dog on the sidewalk.
Anyone who _does_ appreciate such art would have appreciated it in a far less invasive forum as well.
Don't delude yourself into thinking you're some kind of feeling man's vingilante. You're just an artist who turned to vandalism because they don't know who their audience is.
Cheers.
The objection of the City Council is that drinks companies and others are paying a so called 'artist' to put advertisments when the companies know that they are not allowed to do this.
Readers outside the UK may not be aware that these companies have recently been tackled for their practice of flyposting their adverts on every flat surface they can find and this is their latest attempt to get around restrictions on where advertising can be put.
Therefore the real issue is not whether preventing someone being paid to put advertising slogans on walls is a restriction on 'artistic freedom'. The real issue is should big corporations be able to plaster their slogans on your wall in defiance of local ordinances?
Does it disturb anyone else that Smirnoff is doing this to reach the "teenage market"?
09
In my opinion the devil took Bush to the mountain top...and he said yes. 2000 years ago Christ rejected greed, power and dominion to serve humbly. Our president when asked says his only mistake in his adult life was trading Sammy Sosa. troll Sickening that no part of being a drunk driving, draft dodging, C student, womanizing, coke snorting, trust funded brat never registered in his memory in the ooops column./troll
Cut from the same cloth, Islamic Fundamentalists spew hate and perverse interpretations of Islam.
One can only hope that the voice of peace and tolerance will erode the powers of hate and fear that predominate today...it can happen...people just need to take a chance and unclench their fists.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Oh yeah, I forgot, they're not "citizens". But, I guess it's OK to plant settlements in their midst where "democracy" flourishes selectively, and it's OK to clear their lands and annex them, bulldoze their homes, shoot their children, and generally relegate them to the status of pests.
Democracy is founded on a deep respect for human rights and a deep belief in the equality of all humans, and that includes occupied subjects.
Let me remind that we occupied Germany and Japan for 50 years. After nuking Japan and bombing Dresden. Yet, we managed some reasonable and amicable relations with our occupied subjects. And, while our occupation and our democracy may not be top-notch, those of our strategic ally leave a lot to be desired by comparison.
As for Iraq becoming a democracy under our tutelage, that's a laughable idea. We propped Saddam up for a very long time, including a good number of years after the first Gulf war. And, as a consequence, he got the opportunity to inflict serious atrocities upon the Iraqi people, even after we destroyed his armies. In addition, our own actions and the sanctions we imposed on Iraq were quite atrocious as well; though, "the price was worth it" according to our own secretary of state (the honorable Ms. Albright); The price being the monthly death toll of thousdands of Iraqi children as a direct result of sanctions, and the endeavor being the implementation of US policies.
I assure you that few Iraqis will forget that statement, or the fact that we sent them back to the stone age and made them stay there for a long time, and then went on to brag about it.
I am sure that they can have democracy, but our credibility with the Iraqis has been eroded beyond repair, and no matter what we say or do, they will resist us. Hell, we have not yet formally apologized for that "acceptable price" comment, or even acknowledged any responsibility for the sanctions that we enforced ruthlessly.
Maybe, if we started showing some respect to the Iraqis, and demonstrating that we truely and deeply believe that they are human beingds like us, things can change. But for now, the primary impediment to peace in Iraq is our very presence.
for the most part, i like banksy's work.
I am not criticising his "art" - a lot of it is very clever and powerful. However, what I do really object to is the way he feels to need to do it on property and locations he doesn't own. A lot of it would be just as clever and powerful if it was in the form of posters, or if he used water-based paints that could be washed off, or if he got the permission of the building owners before doing it.
But he is deliberately destructive. He was said himself that he has experimented with using acid to etch stuff into limestone buildings so that they could never be removed. That kind of behaviour is extremely irresponsible in my view, and from that perspective, he is a complete wanker.
Er... has it ever occurred to you that the guard, he, and all the sheep, are the human race, of which you are just another individual? If almost everyone disagrees with you, isn't it slightly more plausible that you might be mistaken, rather than the rest of the world? A lesson that the Whitehouse is painfully slowly in learning too.
"It's the thought that counts", is an idiotic platitude to make children feel better about when they fuck up. It's not your intentions that count, it's your actions, because they're the only things that exist outside your head. Unless you consider yourself to be the only worthwhile person in existance. So sticking your litter on the wall wasn't an artistic statement, no matter how you chose to see it. It was sticking your litter on the wall, so someone else would have had to tidy up after you.
but your not a fanatic are you? If you were, you'd likely want to burn me at the stake for being wiccan.
No, actually, you do not have property rights to the dirt on your car. As proven by the incredibly obvious fact that you can't sue someone for hitting it with a hose,
Don't get hung up on the question of who owns the dirt particles. The fact is that you do not have the right to alter the appearance of my car, either by removing or by adding dirt, paint, or anything else. In most cases, there are no damages. But if you scrawl a racist message on my car and I suffer ill consequences, you may be liable. If you get my car wet in situations where I have a reasonable expectation that it won't get wet, you may be liable.
or sue God when it rains.
I don't have a reasonable expectation that it doesn't rain. I do have a reasonable expectation that you don't do anything to change the appearance of my car.
You do not own the dirt laying on your car, any more than you own leaves that have blown into your yard or CO2 exhaled from your lungs.
I certainly do own the leaves that have accumulated in my yard, as well as the dust and dirt that replenishes the soil, as well as the plants that grow by capturing the CO2 in the air.
sooo, you are right because????
He vandalised something he doesn't own. If you can't understand why that is wrong then can you please tell me where you live because I'll enjoy throwing paint all over your stuff, and you won't be bothered, right?